The Scenic Route
by Bjanik
Summary: A peek into Seph and Cloud's life together once Cloud becomes Soldier. Sequel to The Other Way Around. YAOI
1. Snapshot 1 Dance

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: This was supposed to be a collection of one shots, some lemons, some not, of SephCloud following The Other Way Around. But I'm afraid there is a bit of story lurking here. Watch out for Crisis Core Spoilers which may or may not be accurate to that story. We start with something short but will be picking up the pace soon.**

"Well, Cloud sure is attracting attention." Colonel Gavin McIntyre sipped his drink at the bar next to General Sephiroth. There was a considerable buffer of space around them, the General's odd appearance alone tending to make people nervous enough to avoid him. He was also recognizable enough that people kept looking over, in some cases approaching, only to veer away at the first hostile look from those green eyes.

Currently those eyes were fixed on Cloud, who was gyrating on the dance floor with other new Third Class Soldiers in an upscale nightclub the officers had selected for them to celebrate graduation. They weren't alone on the dance floor; there were more than enough young women in expensive club wear for every Soldier, attracted to their bright eyes and dangerous reputation. But Cloud had an unusual concentration around him, each vying for his attention, plus some very fit and fine looking young men that Sephiroth could see eyeing him. Possibly because his unusual looks, but maybe more because of the way he was moving.

"He dances like a stripper," Gavin said.

And he was right. Cloud had way more hip motion than his more conservatively dancing classmates, his shoulders were back and square, highlighting his pectorals under his close fitting uniform.

Sephiroth growled softly. "I think that is Zack's fault."

As if on cue Zack Fair (in his stocking feet) slid sideways on the polished wooden floor to a position next to Cloud. The two started in with a synchronized motion that magnetized the attention of entire dance floor. And more. Sephiroth didn't mind the girls moving themselves in front or behind to grind their hips together with the two Soldiers. But one of the young men had come forward and exchanged comments with Cloud.

A touch to Sephiroth's shoulder brought him back to himself.

"You want him back over here?" Gavin asked.

Sephiroth didn't answer, but the annoyed look in his answered yes. Gavin leaned forward and put his lips to Sephiroth's ears.

"Keep your head near mine, and smile. Just keep nodding and smiling. Trust me."

Sephiroth gave it a try, able to muster at least a facsimile of his usual small smile and unsure what Gavin was up to. The older Colonel put a hand on Sephiroth's shoulder, and then surprised him with a touch to his cheek. Gavin separated and Sephiroth found his favorite colonel beaming at him, an affectionate look in his eyes that was probably genuine, although Sephiroth for the life of himself couldn't figure out what had triggered it. Quite suddenly Cloud was at his side, reaching between the two officers to steal some of Sephiroth's drink. Then the young man managed to wedge his whole body between them, leaning heavily on Sephrioth.

"What were you and colonel McIntyre talking about?" Cloud asked, his lips tight to Sephiroth's ear.

Now Sephiroth smiled in earnest, understanding what Gavin had been doing- using Cloud's jealously against him. Sephiroth wrapped his arms around Cloud, holding him so the entire place might see.

"You," he said, kissing Cloud on the ear.


	2. Snapshot 2 Warmth

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

Cloud Strife stumbled a little over boots that had become impossibly heavy, dragging his toes on the floor where they caught on the linoleum. Or maybe it was the cold, the temperature had plummeted in the last few days and his feet had gone numb hours ago, unable to stay warm with only the activity of pacing the main gate. Being Third Class Soldier was harder than he expected. Well, he had expected it to be challenging, especially the fighting, but he didn't know just walking around on guard duty could be so damn exhausting. He supposed it had something to do with the mind-numbingness of it, and the long hours. The infuriating thing was that the more seasoned Third Classes seemed to breeze through it without difficulty.

The hallway of the Third Class quarters at 2:00 am was bleak and poorly lit, the whitewashed cinderblock walls scuffed and dinged and in need of paint. Cloud marveled that he had become so sensitive to decor, even though he knew why. He had become accustomed the posh hallways and living quarters in the tower. But he didn't want to go up there tonight; it was an extra ten minute walk and he would wake Sephiroth, and only to get up ridiculously early and start it all over again tomorrow. This was one of the reasons he had his own quarters, right? And he'd slept here before. Twice. All he wanted tonight was a bed to crash in for a few hours.

He opened the door with his keycard, one specially coded to open everywhere he needed to go, including the elevator to the thirty-fourth floor in the tower and Sephiroth's apartment. He stepped into the darkness of the small room.

"Cloud?" Roberto, his roommate, asked sleepily.

Roberto was a second year Third Class and like Cloud forced to share a room until he had three years in. After three years it was unlikely that a man would progress to Second Class, probably because of low mako level stabilization. At that point career Third Classes moved into another rank with single occupancy rooms and additional privileges. First and second year Third Classes were the lowest of the low.

"Yeah," Cloud said. "Sorry, late night."

Something flew across the room in front of him in the dark, and in a room with no windows Cloud heard and felt it more than saw it. Roberto had thrown something large and light onto Cloud's bed. Cloud found his bunk, with his blanket in a crumpled pile on top of it.

"I was borrowing your blanket," his roommate said.

Cloud kicked off his boots and grabbed his numb toes with his hands. This did little good, since his hands were just as cold. He decided against undressing and just slid into bed, setting the alarm on his watch by repeatedly pushing the backlight button so his could see the face long enough to get right numbers cued up. But he couldn't sleep. He lay shivering, his heart accelerated with his body's effort to keep warm. Twenty minutes passed.

"Rob, are you still up?" Cloud asked quietly.

"Yeah."

"How do you sleep in this cold?"

"Last few days I've been using your blanket."

"Isn't there any heat in here?" Cloud asked.

"There's no heat in this wing. Never has been."

Cloud made a disgusted noise and got out of bed.

"Here," he said, tossing his blanket back to the other Soldier. "I'm going upstairs."

Roberto gave a short laugh. "I don't know why you ever come down here, Strife."

"Because I miss you."

The young man laughed again. "Thanks Cloud. For the blanket."

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By the time Cloud made it upstairs he could barely focus. 3:00 AM, he'd only get two hours sleep at most. He took off his boots inside the door and headed back for the bedroom. Sephiroth would have woken, no doubt, but the General knew the sound of Cloud's step even stumbling along half asleep. Cloud stripped off all his clothes and crawled under layers of warm covers held aloft for him. He sank into the bed, the warm, warm bed.

"I didn't expect to see you tonight," Sephiroth said softly, sounding pleased. He pulled Cloud into his arms, those warm, warm arms.

"Shiva, Cloud, you're freezing! Come here."

Cloud wiggled himself until every inch of his length lay along Sephiroth, sucking heat out of him like a leach. The older man didn't seem to mind at all. As far as Cloud had observed Sephiroth never seemed to get cold.

"Can I request extra blankets for the Third Class wing?" Cloud asked.

"They don't have blankets?"

"Yeah, they do, but not enough. There's no heat down there."

"What do you mean there's no heat down there?" Sephiroth asked, now fully awake.

"There's never been heat down there."

"Well, that's not correct. I distinctly remember heat being installed when we outfitted that wing." Sephiroth wondered how long this had been going on. It was one of the disadvantages to their training- Third Classes especially, eager to impress, avoided complaining to the degree that sometimes they didn't bring up obvious problems.

"I'm leaving early for Kalm tomorrow, but I'll leave a message in the office to have maintenance check it out. In the meantime you can go down to supply and request extra blankets."

"Thanks, Seph," Cloud smiled and sunk into his two hours of sleep.

cccccccccccc

Duty the next morning wasn't as bad as Cloud had expected. He drank a hell of a lot of coffee which both warmed him up and kept him awake. The company was lively, if a bit caffeine punchy, and he was done by noon. That was one of the good things about having back to back gate duty. He could sleep the whole afternoon away if he wanted. But Cloud had one more thing to do. He trotted over to the supply warehouse.

"I need some extra blankets," Cloud said to an aged man on the other side of a window. The man's squinty eyes and bushy eyebrows made Cloud think of the troll that guarded the bridge in the fairy tale.

"Fill this out," he croaked, and Cloud wrote his name, number, rank, division currently assigned, and under blankets wrote sixty-three. One for every Third Class currently stationed in Midgar.

Cloud handed the clip board back through the window and bushy eyebrows frowned at it. "Ye can't have sixty-three blankets!"

"Why not?" Cloud gave the man a severe look. He knew the warehouse was probably full of blankets; it was just stupid not to let him have them.

"Ye can't use sixty-three blankets yerself. Ye can have one."

"I need _one,"_ Cloud said, with a quiet intensity in his voice that always unnerved him when it was cast in his direction, "For every Third Class in residence. To compensate for the current lack of heat in that wing."

Bushy brows was not impressed.

"General's orders," Cloud added evenly.

The supply troll regarded the young man. Hadn't he seen him with General Sephiroth? Maybe he was his page or something. He supposed he could call somebody and confirm, but the truth was he was terrified of even trying to find out if this came from the General or not.

"Ok, ok, don't need to be gettin' all green on me, ye can have yer damn blankets."

Cloud kept his face severe, but smiled underneath. The blankets came out of a side door piled on an enormous wheeled cart. Cloud took the cart as well without asking. He'd return it later. If he was feeling like it. Stingy old bastard.

He wheeled the cart over to the Third Class wing, and there was stopped for lack of a plan. He could just leave them somewhere, with some sort of note, but given the recent temperatures the first guys to spot them would wind up with four or five each and the rest with none. Most of the guys were on duty, and their rooms were locked. Cloud thought about his keycard. He had been wondering how they coded it for both Sephiroth's quarters and his down here. He swiped it through the reader on first door. The light went green and the door clicked open. Bingo. His card probably opened every Third Class door on the wing. Maybe other things too. Maybe what he had was a duplicate of Sephiroth's card, which opened practically everything belonging to Soldier.

Cloud made short work of the blanket delivery, imagining he was the Winternight Elf delivering gifts. A few guys were around and thanked him heartily, making him feel a bit heroic. The hero of blankets. Cloud wondered about the message Sephiroth had left with the office regarding the heat. A secretary would be calling maintenance; it would probably get put on some enormous list of maintenance stuff to be done... Cloud headed towards the maintenance department.

Maintenance was less controlled than supply, and Cloud wandered through a large area full of spare parts and tools before finding what looked like a desk. A middle aged woman, petite and attractive for her age, sat filling out paperwork. She was dressed in coveralls and Cloud guessed she wasn't a secretary, but rather all the maintenance people just shared this desk to do their paperwork.

"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you," Cloud flashed a smile. "But General Sephiroth wants the heat looked into on the Third Class Soldier wing. He sent a message this morning but had to leave town early. I need to make sure that it gets done before he gets back tonight." Cloud gave another apologetic smile. Another worker passing by heard him and a look of fear and panic took over the man's face. Both he and the woman started rapidly shuffling through carbon triplicate forms on the desk.

"I saw it this morning," the man said.

"I didn't know it came directly from the General," the woman said, "it just said 'Office of Soldier' on it. Here it is."

Just as Cloud had thought, the request had been buried down into the pile of work orders.

"We'll get right on it," the man said. "Do you want us to call you with status when we've found the problem?"

"Uh, no," Cloud said, trying hard to act like he knew what he was doing. What if they needed a decision, or wanted to order parts? This was more than he had bargained for. "Just call the main office."

"OK," The woman said brightly.

Cloud turned to go and with his enhanced ears could hear them whispering behind him. He caught _Cloud Strife_ and _General_. So maintenance knew who he was. Interesting. And maybe useful. Cloud smiled. Throwing Sephiroth's weight around had proved to be shockingly easy. He took the elevator up to the tower, feeling his fatigue and enjoying the thought of a warm comfy bed, even if Sephiroth wasn't in it.


	3. Getting Off Track

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

"Do you have a minute for me?"

Sephiroth, stopped on his way out the door of his office to a meeting, had to dip his head to see Major Niven's eyes. They were greened up and the man had them respectfully lowered to keep from presenting green to his commander.

"Of course, always for one of my First Classes," the General laid down the folder he was holding so his man might have his full attention. "What can I do for you, major?"

Alexander Niven seemed unable to speak, and although his body appeared calm, Sephiroth could feel the heat of anger radiating off of him. He latched one hand onto Sephiroth's shoulder and pulled him steadily over to the window. The General looked at him in surprise, not even his First Classes, save maybe Zack, dared handle him like that. He wondered what could have put his most stoic and disciplined officer in this state. Sephiroth looked out the window as was indicated.

Oh.

A lone figure stood in the courtyard three floors below, capped with an unmistakable ruff of blond hair.

"What's he done now?" Sephiroth asked, suddenly weary.

"Refused a mission."

Sephiroth winced. He didn't bother asking why; it didn't matter. This was far too far.

A light step behind him and a familiar masculine scent entered the room and Sephiroth glared at Zack's uninvited entrance to his office. He thought for a moment that he was too lenient with the ones he favored- this one included. But as Zack put a hand to Sephiroth's shoulder and gazed out the window he had to remind himself that Zack generally brought him nothing but pride and good performance. The whole program liked and respected Zack. Cloud was his problem at the moment and he would do well to keep that straight.

"Did I hear right, he refused a mission?" Zack asked, sticking his head between the other two men to better peer at Cloud through the window.

Niven nodded.

Zack looked into Sephiroth's eyes with a serious look of "we both know what has to be done." They had just discussed Cloud's behavior this morning and agreed that the young Third Class was overdue to take some lumps.

"Can you delay your mission half an hour?" Sephiroth asked Niven.

"I can."

"Submit him for discipline. Public."

Niven nodded.

"Let me set him up," Zack said.

Sephiroth stared at the side of Zack's face as the young Soldier continued to stare down at Cloud. His face had a hard, determined look to it.

"You'll come?" Zack asked quietly. Both he and Niven held their breath, knowing this was going to be a difficult trial for their commander.

"Yes," Sephiroth answered, sighing. "I have to know, you all have to know, what my reaction is to seeing him hurt. Have him ready in ten minutes for the full nine, Major. Don't spare him any on my account."

Both Soldiers nodded and left Sephiroth to put out the call for mandatory assembly. Every Soldier in the building, training hall, or living quarters would be making haste to the courtyard for fear of arriving late and catching hell themselves. Probably there were just shy of one hundred in residence at the moment. As for Sephiroth, he paced the minutes away in his office. He would make his appearance as usual, once the entire assembly had gathered.

ccccc

Zack walked with Major Niven, who was still burning off steam and wanted to take the stairs. The elevator was no place for a frustrated Soldier.

"What did he refuse?" Zack asked. Niven shot him an annoyed glance.

"Doesn't think he should hunt Zolom at night. I didn't explain to him that with a good light spell they'll creep out of their holes, and that it's actually easier because they're sluggish at night. Because I shouldn't have to explain everything to a _third class_ to get him to follow orders!"

"Easy, Alex," Zack said, careful to keep his tone neutral, "Sir, I just want to know what to rub his nose in."

Niven nodded and tried to relax. He hated all of this. He hated that the General was going to have to watch something so obviously painful. The man had saved his life personally twice times in Wutai, plus that other ordeal that only he knew. Not to mention countless hours of meticulous planning and fighting the Company for the right training and equipment for the troops to stay alive and successful. There were times he was sure that Sephiroth never slept, and it was no accident that those who knew the true score were deathly loyal to him. But the General needed his program to run smoothly as well, and by his own decree Third Classes discipline had to be absolute. The First Classes, Niven included, had been letting Cloud get out of hand for because none of them wanted to cause the General pain. And because Sephiroth had said under direct questioning that he didn't know how he would respond to seeing Cloud beaten. But they needed Sephiroth strong regarding Cloud. Cloud was a Soldier. Someday he'd be injured, or even killed in the field, and they needed to feel secure that their commander could keep it together regardless.

Zack interrupted Niven's thoughts with a light hand to his chest. They had reached the entrance to the courtyard and Zack wanted to approach Cloud alone. Niven watched anxiously, because he knew Zack also was extremely fond of the young troublemaker. But something in Zack's face made him suspect that Cloud would receive no coddling this time.

Cloud looked up when he heard Zack approaching. _Thank Gaia,_ he thought, _Finally we can get this sorted out._

He barely had time to register there was something odd about the way Zack looked before he was on the ground, the side of his face numb. But Cloud could taste the copper in his mouth; in fact the red stuff was flowing freely down his chin. He looked up at Zack in disbelief, half because Zack had actually hit him and half because he never saw the blow coming. And now he could tell what was amiss with Zack, the Soldier was fully greened up and angry as hell. He'd seen Zack green before, but not like this, not full up. Still disoriented Cloud stood up, and took another blow on the other side of his face that connected with part of his eye. He should have expected this one, should have been able to roll with it, but he didn't see this one coming either. Feeling dizzy and dazed he wondered just how fast Zack really was. Clearly he had no idea. Then he was being hauled to his feet by his shirt and given a few good shakes to make sure he was paying attention.

"How dare you!" Zack hissed, fury leaking out through clenched teeth. "Are you such a fucking idiot that you don't know what this does to him? To have his officers tell him you're an undisciplined pain in the ass? Disrespectful? Arrogant? Stupid?"

Zack gave Cloud another shake as Cloud clutched uselessly onto the arms that held him aloft like iron bars. He thought about kicking Zack in the groin but something inside him let him know this would just make matters worse. Blood spilled down his throat and he coughed reflexively, spraying both Zack and himself. His right eye was already swelling and eclipsing his vision.

"You are submitted for discipline."

Zack dragged the almost limp form to the short railing that every Soldier knew and recognized. It had only this one purpose. Cloud had yet to see it in use, and it looked like he was going to see it for the first time from the users end. His mind ran in tight circles as Zack jerked the shirt over his head and physically placed both of Cloud's hands on the rail. Cloud grabbed on for support. Out of the corners of his eye he could see the courtyard filling up with Soldiers, coming to witness his humiliation. Zack went around behind him, removed his gear belt, undid his pants, and jerked them to the ground where they lay crumpled around his feet. Cloud looked down, blood still leaking from his mouth, and was grateful to see his shorts still in place. A cold early winter wind informed him that as protection his boxers would do very little.

"You are only keeping _those_," Zack said coldly, "out of deference to the General. If you cry out, or if you try to look at him, I will hit you again. If you twitch I will tie you to this rail. And by the way, with Niven's method it happens to be better to hunt Zolom at night."

Zack didn't wait for a response and Cloud watched him take up a position from where he could make good his threats. Cloud's mind seemed to be working in slow motion, but finally he grasped two simple ideas: He hadn't even been right about the Zolom thing, and Sephiroth had to have at least agreed to this or it wouldn't be happening. If he hadn't ordered it himself.

"He's ready," Zack said.

Cloud barely heard Zack's words before pain seared across his back. He would have gasped but the suddenness of it stole his breath. Unlike a lot of his injuries, the blows Zack had given him for instance, there was no merciful initial numbness. That many tailed whip they were hitting him with was designed over the centuries to deliver pain, and it did its job well. Another strike and this time he almost cried out, but he gritted his teeth against it. He didn't want scream, even without Zack's threat. The humiliation was doubled for a Soldier who cried out in pain. Another came, this one surprising him across the back of his legs. Saliva sprang into his mouth and his eyes leaked tears. His nose ran and he could taste the saltiness of the fluid as it ran over his upper lip and into his mouth. The fourth came, seeking a fresh area around his left shoulder and side. He knew it was going fast but some part of his mind registered it as hellishly slow. He wondered how many he was getting and if he could manage to stay conscious until it was done. The fifth came, and this time his clenched teeth did part. His ears were ringing loudly in his head, but he was pretty sure he made a noise. In his mind he pleaded to Zack not to hit him or bind him. He hadn't meant to; he couldn't stop it. Another strike, how many was that? Six he thought, but out of how many total? He tried to think about what he had done. He had been arguing with Niven... Shiva, he had refused a mission. Refused his orders... he might as well have gone AWOL. He was going to get the maximum – nine. There wouldn't be any skin left on his back. The next two went to his legs, making sure there was no pristine area left there. Some of the narrow braided leather whips were hitting him where his shorts covered, but the thin fabric did little to stop their bruising and cutting force. The ninth scraped him straight down from shoulders to waist and left Cloud barely conscious. He felt his knees hit the sandy dirt below.

"Hey, Soldiers doing their barbaric thing."

A tall, lean man in a suit stopped his companions to look at the action. The woman with them, also attired in a suit and tie, stood on her toes and moved her head around to see through the throng of Soldiers witnessing. She saw the blond head being coaxed back up by another Soldier.

"Hey, you know who that is?" she said, "that's Cloud Strife, he's the General's paramour."

All four Turks looked over to where Sephiroth stood; easily spotting him set apart as he was from the crowd.

"What a bastard," said a large, bald Turk, "He'd probably have his own mother flogged. If he had one." The man adjusted his sunglasses and looked away.

The Turks resumed their trek to the West building; they had a meeting with their commander and didn't care to be late. But one lingered, taking a second look at the young blond man. The silent observer's hair was as red as the cherry at the end of the cigarette he was squeezing in on their short outdoor journey. He watched with turquoise eyes as that pretty brunette First Class helped the victim get his pants back up. So that was Cloud. He'd been in the field so much in the last few months that he hadn't seen the General's new love interest yet. But he hadn't stopped thinking about him, not for six months. Reno Sinclair wasn't the type to forget anything. Certainly not the twerp who had cheated him out of his favorite tumble, even if it was only a once a year thing, and with a silver haired bastard. With one last look to implant the face of Cloud Strife into his brain he sauntered after his companions.

Cloud stood still, barely able to stay upright as Zack carefully pulled up his Soldier black fatigues and fastened them. His touch was so gentle Cloud figured his friend's ire was spent. But one look at his face told him it wasn't so.

"Go show yourself to him," Zack all but spat.

Cloud turned numbly, seeing out of his one good eye that the men had almost all dissipated. He walked slowly over to Sephiroth, every step making his bleeding legs and buttocks feel like his pants were burning him. He stood for a long moment in front of Sephiroth, head lowered. When he finally looked up he saw only at first a cold stoniness to his face. But in his eyes was pain so apparent he wondered if the man was about to crack in two. And suddenly in the clarity of mind that physical pain sometimes brings he realized that Sephiroth was being punished too. His lover had been beaten and then handed to him, and Sephiroth had no choice really but to stand through it or retract everything he professed to believe in. Cloud's ears rang with Sephiroth's words from Ambush Day, which seemed a lifetime ago- 'every Soldier belongs to me, and the respect and obedience of a Third Class must be absolute.' Cloud was a Third Class Soldier. A poor one. One that probably would have been dismissed if not for his connection to the General, a connection he'd been abusing. Cloud's behavior in the last month had been atrocious and at the moment he couldn't remember how he had gotten into this mode.

"Seph, I'm so sorry," he said.

Sephiroth shut his eyes, and his whole face looked tired and old. He had never looked old to Cloud before, and he wasn't actually, the man was in his mid-twenties. It was a marvel of emotional turmoil that could make that smooth face look aged, and when Sephiroth opened his eyes again the pain had not released its hold one bit.

"Do you still love me?" Cloud asked, trying and failing not to plead.

"Gaia, of course Cloud." Sephiroth gently put a hand on each side of Cloud's head and kissed him on the undamaged eyebrow. "But I don't think I can watch this again."

"You won't have to," Cloud said. "Because I am about to become the most well-behaved, humble, respectful Third Class the ShinRa Army has ever seen."

Sephiroth let out a breath. He had thought for a moment that Cloud was going to say he would leave Soldier, and in fact Sephiroth had been thinking during the flogging that it might be better that way. But when it came to it he found he didn't want Cloud to leave Soldier. He had been looking forward to eventually adding Cloud to his tight working circle that included the few he trusted. Zack. Gavin. Niven. His First Classes. And he didn't know how he would relate to someone who was not in Soldier. Soldier was his whole life.

Sephiroth studied the blood crusted swellings on Cloud's mouth and right eye. Facial blows were usually personal beefs. Someone had worked Cloud over a bit before Sephiroth had arrived, and he knew it must have been Zack. Zack was the one who set him up for the punishment. It wasn't just to be sure Cloud was left with his shorts on that he had asked for that job. Sephiroth leaned forward and kissed Cloud again, careful to not to brush any painful areas. Cloud let himself lean briefly into the man's chest, aware that Sephiroth's touch was conspicuously careful, and also that he would be getting a clear view of the damaged flesh down Cloud's back. Then Cloud straightened himself with as much dignity as he could muster.

"I think I need to report back to my commander."

Sephiroth nodded, laying one last gentle finger to Cloud's lips, the good side of which smiled slightly. Then the General turned and walked into the building without looking back.

Cloud turned and was penalized for his quick motion by the fire on the backs of his legs. He modified his speed to a slow, careful amble as he approached Niven.

"Reporting for duty, sir," Cloud said, a bit amazed at the evenness in his own voice.

"You're in no shape for duty, Soldier. Your squad will have to take up the slack for you."

Cloud winced with part of his face that was mobile. The pain from the movement caused him to wince again.

"And I think you know the rule, you don't take Cure from anyone but me. If you choose you can do you begging from me when we get back. It'll be late."

"Yes sir. Thank-you, sir," Cloud said, keeping his eyes lowered.

Niven's face softened. The kid certainly had taken his lumps well. No sense in letting him get infected while he sat with his pain, and Zack was hovering with obvious anxiousness.

"I think Captain Fair would like to tend to you in the meantime." Niven nodded to Zack as Cloud saluted. Then he turned to gather his squad for some much needed Zolom hunting.

"Hey."

Cloud slowly and carefully turned to see Zack, holding Cloud's shirt and gear and looking normal now, his eyes their usual, concerned violet. He put his hand on the back of Cloud's head. "C'mon, they got some stuff for those welts."

They walked together at Cloud's slow pace to the infirmary. An intern frowned as he saw Cloud come in, reached for a materia box before Zack waved him off.

"OK," the intern said, sure he would never understand Soldiers. "But if he waits more than 24 hours he'll scar."

Zack nodded, then fussed and argued with several medical personnel until they had a curtained area with a bed. The intern returned with a jar of ointment and Zack took it from him and sent the man away. He helped Cloud out of his clothes, including his shorts, and as Cloud lay face down on the bed Zack spread the ointment gently over the wounds. They were all just into the skin, not one cutting into muscle; Niven had an admirably even touch with the lash.

"Zack?" Cloud said, trying to move his face around on the pillow to take pressure off of swollen areas.

"Hmm?" Zack laid some of the ointment to the split outside of Clouds eye with the light touch of a lover.

"I'm sorry. For all of this. I understand now, how this was affecting Seph. I've been getting away with a lot of shit."

"It's our fault too," Zack said, dipping three fingers back into the ointment pot. "The First Classes, for not getting on you sooner. For letting our concern for how that would affect Seph interfere with what was best for him, for Soldier. For you. Discipline and organized structure is what keeps you alive in the field, you know that right?"

Cloud sighed. He knew, he really did. He had just... forgot. As for the treatment Zack had given him, the blows weren't so bad, they weren't kittenpaws, but he'd received plenty worse in training accidents. He was far more disturbed that he could have made Zack so angry with him.

"Are you still mad?" Cloud asked, hoping he knew the answer but still wanting to hear Zack say it.

"Shit no, Cloud. It's over now, time to move on." Zack snorted a small laugh. "And hey, you actually outdid me this time. The most I've ever had was five lashes. Although I had to do it twice."

"Twice?" Cloud said, incredulous. He'd have to be an unrivaled idiot to earn this punishment twice.

"Well the first one was the regular thing, thinking I was Gaia's gift to Soldier, mouthing off. You know."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"The second was hardly my fault. I fucked Palmer's daughter. You wouldn't believe it but she's hot. And she was of legal age, I forget but definitely over sixteen. Maybe even eighteen. And she was totally into it, not looking for a relationship or anything, but Palmer caught us, and demanded my hide. And Soldier gave it to him; had to in order to appease the brass. They wanted to flog me unconscious. Angeal was disgusted but administered it himself. He told me to howl my fool head off and I did, I screamed like it was killing me. Well, it does hurt like hell, so it was easy enough to do."

Cloud smiled a little. "I know."

"Anyway, all that screaming and blood, Palmer threw up after five strokes and they decided it was enough."

Both men laughed, and Cloud squinted his one good eye with the pain it caused. But he was feeling a little better, and figured the ointment Zack used must have had a numbing agent in it. Cloud stared at Zack, wondering how he did it. A half an hour ago Zack had been smacking him around and now he had him laughing. Zack returned his gaze for a long moment, then he put one hand into the blond hair, bent down and kissed Cloud's forehead.

"Rest," he said, "I'll be back in a little while."

And with that Zack Fair abruptly left.

cccccccccccc

Major Niven's squad came in about two in the morning, stopping at mission prep to clean up and de-equip before heading off to their quarters. They had done a good job tonight; the squad was somber after witnessing the public disciplining of one of their own and had fought all the better and cleaner for it. Niven had barely dropped his gear in the officer's room when Cloud knocked at the door. Cloud was wearing one of the 'robes of shame'- a traditional loose robe made of silk for just such an occasion. They were always dark red or black to hide the blood. Every Soldier put to the flogging rail was given one, although Cloud was wearing an older style of a few years ago. It was probably Zack's. Zack was one of the few Soldiers who owned two.

Niven was a little disappointed to see Cloud since normally it was a point of honor not to ask for Cure until hour 23, and then only if they wanted to avoid the scarring. Many never asked for it at all. Some guys wore their scars like a badge.

"Come to beg?" Niven asked, too tired to be civil.

"Yes sir," Cloud said. "I'd rather not, but..." Cloud worked his jaw while Niven peered at him curiously. "The General doesn't deserve to suffer any more from this today, and he will if he has to look at me like this. I heard that you can do a surface cure?" Zack had told him that, some guys, Niven included, could lay the Cure down in a way to just heal the skin but leave most of the pain. It was a trick Zack apparently lacked the subtlety to master.

Niven nodded. It actually took more out of him than a full cure and he was already exhausted, but he supposed he could take a little extra rest tomorrow. Besides, it was for the General.

"Robe off," Niven said, "I need to be able to see your skin,"

Cloud took off the robe, leaving himself naked in the cold room. Niven accessed a master materia already loaded into a piece of his gear, summoned a cure, but then pulled it back. He imagined the force of the spell to be in his palms, barely escaping the confines of his body. Then he ran his hands millimeters above Cloud's injuries, careful to keep the distance close and even, holding his concentration until a drop of sweat trickled down in front of one ear. Cloud felt the tingling, but no relief to the throbbing aches. He looked at Niven questioningly, and the older man nodded, indicating it was done.

Niven appraised Cloud's appearance. He looked perfect, no one would know he hadn't the full cure. In fact his squad would assume he had, and Cloud was going to have to work extra hard to overcome the loss of respect from that assumption because, if he guessed right, Cloud wasn't going to correct them on the matter.

"Thank-you sir," Cloud said. "You won't have this trouble with me again. I understand now. I disrespected you. I disrespected Soldier and I disrespected the General. And I hurt him with it."

Niven nodded and might have smiled if he wasn't so reserved by habit. He had been worrying, all of them had in fact, that this kid had the General wrapped around his pinky. But it seemed that it worked both ways. He suspected it was true that he wouldn't have trouble with Strife again, because he could twist him into behaving simply by reminding him that he was General Sephiroth's weak spot.

He dismissed Cloud and wondered about him, about his relationship with the General. Most observers would have detected nothing in Sephiroth's face while the General watched the young man be flogged, but Niven wasn't the ordinary observer. He had seen the pain there, deep and wounding. Normally the man looked bored during public discipline. He certainly wouldn't have been distressed over anything that happened to any previous lover. They had all been casual, pros, non-Soldiers. Similar to Niven's own choices. But everything with this one was different for the General. Sephiroth displayed nothing but tenderness towards Cloud, and Niven had trouble understanding it. Maybe because he had never found someone for himself that he felt that way about.

ccccccccccccc

Cloud slid his keycard in Sephiroth's door. He had considered sleeping in his own Third Class quarters due to the late hour, but then Sephiroth would probably worry over him. He had showered the blood and ointment from his skin in the locker rooms, and the water had burned like acid, not to mention the horrors of the terry cloth towel. Plus several of his squad who were cleaning up from the Zolom hunt had slapped him on the back, some out of friendliness and some to let him know they noticed that he took the cure early. Each time he almost passed out from pain. He accepted it all with little comment. Then he had to dress in actual clothes and walk over to the main tower, torture in every step.

"Cloud?"

Cloud had barely opened the door when Sephiroth called from the bedroom. He came out immediately, that maroon robe barely wrapped around him. Cloud momentarily forgot his pain, so stunningly beautiful the General was in that thing.

"Hi." Cloud said stupidly.

"You took the cure," Sephiroth said, stroking Cloud's smooth cheek.

"Well there are more important things than my pride."

Sephiroth smiled. It wouldn't have been his choice, but he'd been told that pride could be a troublesome thing, after all.

"Come to bed," he said gently, touching Cloud under the chin.

Cloud smiled tiredly and once in the bedroom shrugged out of his uniform and slipped into bed. Sephiroth, who had similarly discarded his garment, lay beside Cloud and wrapped an arm around him. Cloud managed not to yelp in pain, but stiffened.

"Seph, could you not hold me tonight?"

Sephiroth rolled away, leaving a gap between him and Cloud. He lay awake for a long time, his eyes staring upward, unseeing. He had perhaps been foolish to think that he and Cloud could just slide beyond this. He had ordered his lover to be flogged for the full nine. He still believed it had been the right thing to do; the command structure was necessary to the safety of every man, Cloud included. And their traditional system of discipline was their system. It was handed down from their military ancestors long before there was ShinRa. But Cloud probably didn't see it that way, and here they lay, in the same bed, separated by oceans of darkness.

Eventually Sephiroth could stand it no longer, and he was sure Cloud wasn't sleeping either. They needed to talk about it.

"Cloud, I want to explain why we... why I did this to you tonight."

Cloud sighed. He hadn't thought this far ahead when he had decided on the surface cure, that Sephiroth would want to touch him and not just see him. That he might, that they might, want to make love. And Cloud would have liked to make love, to feel that they were still connected. That they were OK.

"No, it's all right, I do understand. I know why you did it. Why you had to."

"But you won't let me hold you?"

"I do want to be held," Cloud said, scooting over on his stomach until his head lay on Sephiroth's shoulder. "I just need you to not-." Cloud hissed as he was a little too late, "not touch my back."

Sephiroth immediately pulled his arm up and away, tenting the covers above Cloud.

"Did you take a surface cure?"

Cloud nodded, hurting his mouth as his cheek moved along Sephiroth's shoulder.

"You did this for me?"

"Yeah, I guess I did. I didn't want you to have to look at me all beat up just because I've been an asshole."

"Cloud, I appreciate that, but you have to tell me things like this. You want to keep this pain?"

"Yeah, I'm not really done with it yet."

"OK," Sephiroth said. He could respect that, pain had a spiritual cleansing aspect for which there was no substitute. "I won't force a Cure on you. But I do need somewhere to put my hands."

Sephiroth reached over to a materia box he kept in the nightstand and then Cloud felt a tingling around his glutes as the pain across his butt cheeks disappeared. Sephiroth laid one hand across their rounded surface.

"Did you just heal up your favorite part?" Cloud asked, oblivious to the degree of relief his playful tone imparted to his lover.

"Nope." Sephiroth leaned his head away from Cloud so he could look at him in the dim light and put a hand gingerly to the blonde's face, tracing the areas where Zack had struck him. "_This_ is my favorite part. And I think I should be allowed to cure these since they weren't from your punishment. I think they were from pissing Zack off. And that isn't an easy thing to do."

"It's not so difficult, really," Cloud said, feeling the wounds in his face tingle with the Cure. "I've bumped into this anger before where you're concerned, just nothing so severe. He's very protective over you. All your guys are; I think they're all pretty pissed off at me right now." Cloud shook his head as a few additional memories of his recent behavior presented themselves. "I'm done being a jerk, Seph, I know I have to be a better Soldier than the rest, not the other way around."

Sephiroth kissed Cloud, on the mouth this time without worry of causing him pain. The comment about Zack surprised him. He knew his men were protective of him in the field, but hadn't known Zack extended that to his personal life. He smiled a little and let Cloud nuzzle his face into him. He put one hand back on Cloud's bottom, moving his hand so his palms could feel the smooth skin over firm muscle. His fingertips trailed up and down the cleft, then reached over to the other cheek and stroked that one too. Cloud slid one leg onto Sephiroth's thighs, allowing his growing erection to press against his lover's hip.

"You want to play?" Sephiroth asked, more than a little surprised.

"Yeah, but, it hurts to move." Cloud laughed a little.

"Hmmm," Sephiroth grabbed the lube and put it on both hands. He nudged Cloud as much onto his side as he could tolerate and slipped one finger around to that delicate opening, pushing gently through the alive and squeezing sphincter to be enclosed by the soft, warm flesh inside Cloud's body. He reached forward to press on the small mound inside, messaging gently as his other hand gripped Cloud's now full erection. Cloud kissed him and ran his hand up and down Sephiroth's organ, finding him already stiff as well.

"Where's that lube?" he whispered, and Sephiroth helped him load up his free hand. Cloud's other arm was tangled somewhere beneath the two of them.

"I can only get one hand on you," Cloud said.

"It's good," Sephiroth said, sighing as Cloud grasped him. He hadn't been expecting anything tonight and was grateful just to have Cloud near him.

Cloud was breathing heavily now into the crook of Sephiroth's neck where his head rested, the hot moist exhales sending an excited tingling down Sephiroth's back and arms. Both men worked their hands in strong rhythmic motions under the covers, causing their surface to bounce as they gripped, pulled, and stroked one another's sex until they both released fluid between them. Then they lay panting, skin hot and pressed together, hands covered in lube and semen. Sephiroth reached over and grabbed a tissue for a quick cleanup, trying not to move Cloud but the young man hissed in pain anyway.

"Does the sheet hurt?" Sephiroth asked, wiping off his fingers and then doing Cloud's for him.

"Oddly enough, yeah, it does."

Sephiroth pulled the covers up and nudged Cloud so he was on his stomach beside him. Then he pulled his long silver hair out from under himself.

"You need to cut that," Cloud said, "it's going to hit the floor soon."

"Hmph. Not just yet," Sephiroth said, and moved the entire bulk of his hair onto Cloud's back, draping it for coverage. Then he replaced the covers.

"Oh, that's better," Cloud said. There wasn't anything as smooth as Sephiroth's hair, not even the General's expensive sheets or the robe of shame. Within moments he was asleep, the day's trials, pains, and humiliations lost into the blissful night.

**A/N: I'm wondering about that maroon silk robe Sephiroth wears around all the time that Cloud is always admiring. Cloud hasn't recognized it for what it is. I don't know if he ever will or not.**


	4. Winternight 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Warning, serious holiday fluff ahead. Can't help it. **

Cloud looked down at his feet, still not used to their appearance in his new shoes. The dress shoes crunched and slid on their slick bottoms as he walked through the thin layer of snow that had accumulated during the evening since the sidewalk had been plowed that afternoon. A few flakes found their way down his neck and Cloud pulled the collar a little tighter on his Soldier issue winter camo coat. Winter camouflage was white, made to blend in with the snow, and the coat was actually quite festive looking with its white fur ruff around the hood. He avoided putting the hood up for fear of making his hair look more like bedhead than it already did. He had spent some time on it and now at least it stuck up evenly, like it was on purpose.

The fancy shoes were letting his toes get numb on the mile walk from the ShinRa tower to the party, but Cloud had insisted on walking because he loved these moments alone with Sephiroth when they were in travel mode. Somehow when they were walking it was always easier to ask questions. He brought his gloved hand up to grasp the larger hand from the arm draped across his shoulders.

"Seph?"

"Hmm?"

"How am I doing?"

Sephiroth looked down at Cloud, momentarily unsure of what he was asking. But there was only one thing it could be. They hadn't spoken of it much in the last month, under Sephiroth's suggestion that Cloud quit dwelling on his screw-up and just focus on going forward.

"Fine. Perfect, actually. I hear nothing but what a pleasure Cloud Strife is to work with."

"Will I be held back because I had to be punished?"

"No, Cloud. No. It's common. Most of our best Soldiers do go through that actually. It's generally the more aggressive and stubborn who run into behavior problems early on. Cho. Malik. Kenshi." Sephiroth listed three of his First Classes. "Me."

"Really? You?"

"Of course. But that's a story for later, when we have more time."

Cloud had to struggle to tear his interest away from that one.

"What about Niven?" Cloud asked. He couldn't for the life of himself imagine that guy screwing up; he did everything by the book. Every aspect of his life seemed to be squared away.

"No, he's always been that correct. Rigid. But he felt he needed to know what the experience was like if he was going to administer punishment to somebody else someday. So when he made First Class he asked me flog him in the training hall."

"And you did it?"

"Yes. He took the full nine, and waited the 23 hours before taking a Cure."

Cloud stared into the falling snow, bewildered. He couldn't imagine anyone doing that voluntarily. Come to think of it he couldn't imaging wielding the whip himself, and was a little awed at the man who so understood what it meant to take that responsibility that he wished to be fully prepared for it. Cloud guessed he had a long way to go before he was ready to be a First Class.

"And of course Zack," Sephiroth continued, "He had to do it twice."

"Yeah, he told me about that. The second one didn't really sound like his fault."

"Well, there was a certain amount of stupidity involved in his decision. And although we sometimes have to yield to the pressure of those who hold the purse strings it wasn't something we in Soldier would have disciplined him for. To make sure that was understood Angeal held everyone in formation until after the brass left and then went up and Cured Zack immediately, in front of the whole assembly."

Cloud looked up at Sephiroth and saw him smiling. The man found the oddest things amusing. Or maybe it was fondness from the memory. Angeal. Cloud was curious about Angeal, but Zack, normally so talkative, avoided answering anything about him. He was clearly an important figure to them both, and he clearly wasn't around now.

"Angeal was the same rank as you?" Cloud asked, hoping to get information from an oblique angle.

"Yes, he was a project Soldier, like me. Modified from a young age. He was Zack's mentor until he died. Zack inherited his weapon from him, and I inherited Zack."

"What happened to him?"

"Zack killed him."

Cloud was silent for a minute as they walked along, listening to their footsteps in the snow. Surely Sephiroth meant Angeal was killed in action, and that Zack was unfortunately on the other end of some type of friendly fire. It happened. But the result was always traumatizing to the survivor. He had no idea Zack was carrying around this dark memory; Zack never gave any indication of it.

"How did it happen?" Cloud finally asked.

Sephiroth seemed to consider his words carefully. "Angeal degraded. He lost his mind and mutated into six monsters at once. Zack had no choice."

Cloud actually stopped walking, causing Sephiroth's arm to slip from his shoulders. This was not at all what he expected. He stared at Sephiroth as snow accumulated in the tips of his hair and his long eyelashes, sparkling in the light from the streetlamp. Sephiroth thought Cloud had never looked more beautiful, or more precious to him, and the sight of him had never felt sadder. It was probably time to tell him.

"Listen, Cloud," he said. "There were three project Soldiers, another met his end as Angeal did. I am the third. Their history does not bode well for me. Should I follow that path it may fall to you to do as Zack did."

Cloud shook his head violently. "No. No!"

Sephiroth smiled a little thin smile. "I know you feel that way now. But if it happens the Sephiroth you know will already be gone. You'll be able to tell. Because I'll have forgotten that I love you." He stepped forward and kissed Cloud, drawing him back under his arm so they might continue their walk along the snow covered path. They were going to be late.

"Do you have any indication that you are... degrading?" Cloud asked.

Sephiroth smiled and shook his head. "I was made by a more clever man than they, much as it pains me to say it."

"Hojo?" Cloud made a face.

"Hojo. He pokes, prods, and adjusts me monthly so I don't turn into some berserk monster. For this reason I allow him to live."

Cloud tightened his grip around Sephiroth's waist, and forgetting his evenly spiked hair he leaned his head into Sephiroth's shoulder, feeling the soft, smooth wool of the dress coat under his cheek.

Sephiroth gently stroked Cloud's face with one gloved hand. "Are you sure you want to go to this thing?"

Cloud managed a smile and nodded. Sephiroth had explained the executive Holiday party was a civilized affair, spouses and guests invited, no Honeybee girls or other similar professionals, just expensive alcohol, music, and good food at Old man ShinRa's townhouse mansion. He had also warned that every ShinRa executive was wildly curious about Cloud and that it might be uncomfortable for him for that reason. But there was no way Cloud was going to pass up the opportunity to observe Sephiroth in this environment, dressed to kill (socially rather than literally for a change) in a deep red holiday shirt and black tie, and dress pants of the most incredible fabric Cloud had ever touched. Cloud himself was dressed like he never imagined. As soon as he had agreed to accompany Sephiroth to the party the General had trundled him off to his tailor where he was fitted with dress pants and shirt. Gratefully his age and rank allowed him to escape without a tie, and he had gotten instead some sort of buttoned shirt with a tiny ring of a collar close to his neck. It was a bit restrictive compared to what he was used to wearing, but Sephiroth seemed to like it. Something about what the intense blue color did for his eyes. He was really starting to dislike the shoes though; he felt like he was getting a blister on his right heel.

"And we're here," Sephiroth said, leading them up a walk to one of the ornate doors along a set of row houses, one with its own doorman and festive lights.

"Good evening, General," the doorman said politely, holding the door open and pointedly trying not to stare at either the tall exotic General or his young pretty companion.

They passed into the foyer where another polite servant took their coats and motioned them through the large French doors into the living area. Cloud was instantly mesmerized by scene, and without a hint of self consciousness let his jaw hang partly open as he spun around slowly to take in the room. Fragrant evergreen garlands looped along the tops of the walls and up the railing of the spiral staircase. A string quartet in the corner quietly effused a delicate classic while an enormous fireplace crackled in counterpoint from the other side of the room. Men in women in tight black and white outfits scurried between the guests with trays of champagne flutes and complicated hors d'oeuvres. And the guests! The guests were all dressed in formal finery, the men in suits and ties and gold cufflinks, the women dripping in jewelry and shiny hair that hung in ringlets onto smooth shoulders bared by strapless dresses. Everyone seemed to be giving Cloud some sort of once-over. Cloud looked at Sephiroth, the man's broad shoulders and tall, lean frame, confident, and somehow expensive looking. Cloud shrank a little back from the room towards the foyer from where they came.

"What's wrong?" Sephiroth asked, slipping an arm around him.

"I don't belong here," Cloud said.

"You're right. You're far too beautiful." Sephiroth kissed Cloud on the temple, then snagged them each a glass of champagne. "We need to greet the host first," he said, and led Cloud along to where he could hear the old goat from the dining room. Laughing at his own jokes no doubt.

"General, glad you could make it!" President ShinRa called out as soon as the General's form became apparent.

"As if he considered it optional," Sephiroth muttered in a voice so low only the mako enhanced could have heard. Cloud smiled a little, and lifted a tasty morsel from a tray as it went by.

"Sir," Sephiroth said, with a polite bow of his head.

"And this must be... Skye?" the President asked.

Cloud swallowed his snack in an uncomfortable wad and tried to say 'Cloud' but instead choked. Whatever it was he had hastily swallowed seemed to have swollen in his throat. He gagged, his head lurching forward. Sephiroth thumped him between the shoulders and the noticeably un-masticated salmon ball flew out, hitting president ShinRa on the shoulder before plopping to the floor. Cloud might have been mortified if he wasn't so busy coughing.

"President, this is Cloud. I think I need to get him some water, if you'll excuse us."

Sephiroth herded Cloud towards the kitchen while a waiter dabbed at the salmony grease spot on the suit of the confused looking president.

Once in the kitchen and surrounded only by servants Cloud finally got himself under control.

"Seph, I'm so sorry," he said, forehead scrunched into upset worry.

But Sephiroth had burst out laughing, so hard in fact he had to lean against the counter as he found a water glass and filled it from the tap. Cloud watched, amazed. The most he had ever seen out of Sephiroth before was a chuckle; he didn't even know the General could laugh like this. Cloud accepted the glass and frowned suspiciously at Sephiroth over the rim as he drank, and the man went off in another round of laughter, ignoring the looks from the staff who flowed around them.

"Cloud I'm going to take you everywhere from now on. Maybe you can spew something on Scarlet."

Now Cloud smiled. What did he care, after all, if Sephiroth was happy with him? He let himself be rolled into the older man's arms and laid his head into the strong shoulder for a moment while Sephiroth kissed his hair.

"Ready?" Sephiroth asked. Cloud nodded.

Sephiroth had his route all planned out, who they had to talk to for the sake of show in an order that allowed them to escape the quickest. But no sooner had they cleared the kitchen then Cloud wandered off towards the parlor. Curious, Sephiroth followed to find the quartet had taken a break and had been replaced by at least ten singers, all young, maybe from the college. The women wore dark blue velvet and the men silver shirts. They were singing a cappella, an old melody with fugue elements playing between high and low voices. Cloud had found a sweet spot in the room, where the arched ceiling lit up the sound as it crescendoed in lively waves. He was completely oblivious to the crowd around him, and they were oblivious to the singers. Just one more background entertainment in the house of ShinRa. But as Sephiroth wrapped his arms around Cloud from behind and felt the excitement in the young body and heard what Cloud heard, he too stood transfixed. He had never paid one whit of attention to the music when he came to this thing every year, nor the decor, or the smells. He had of course made note of everything, but he had never appreciated it. And it was amazing. Cloud looked up and grinned, unable to speak.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud swallowed and nodded. "Can we get a tree? For the apartment?"

Sephiroth looked at him in surprise. He had never done anything like that, anything celebratory for Winternight. The actual Winternight wasn't for another week; they'd have plenty of time to get a tree.

"Sure Cloud if you like." He thought about what the traditional tree looked like, seemed to him you were supposed to put something under it... "How about presents?" he asked. "What would you like?"

"Sword!" Cloud blurted out before his brain could remind him to be temperate.

"Good. A gift I know how to shop for at least."

Cloud grinned and they each lifted another glass of champagne, and clinked them together in a silent toast. From then on Sephiroth let Cloud lead, allowing them go at his pace and enjoy the countless things the young man seemed to find to enjoy at the party. In this meandering way they still managed to meet the required slew of executives, all of whom asked questions of Cloud, often questions the young Soldier thought were inappropriate. Cloud marveled at what an odd group of people these were. Even the spouses seemed odd to him. He looked around at them while the General was taking a bathroom break, three glasses of champagne down and feeling quite relaxed.

"Nice shot back there."

Cloud turned to see a young man, twenty at most, with a large flop of golden hair. He remembered him standing behind President ShinRa.

"Rufus ShinRa," the man stuck out his and Cloud shook it, realizing he was the son of the president.

"That was embarrassing," Cloud said, frowning. He wasn't sure if he should apologize or not; it wasn't like he had hit Rufus with the salmon ball.

"Not at all," Rufus said, "these parties can be such a bore." Rufus drained his glass and replaced the empty with a full from one of the roving drink trays. "Are you enjoying this?"

"Kind of," Cloud said cautiously.

"Uh huh. You need to come to one of my parties. You look like you'd enjoy something a little more lively." Rufus brought one hand up and lightly touched Cloud's cheek, delicate and pink and flushed with champagne. Cloud jerked back in surprise.

"General!" Rufus said, dropping his hand. Sephiroth had apparently come up behind Cloud, and either Rufus was insensible to the murderous glare he was given or didn't care. "Your young friend and I were just getting acquainted. He's lovely. Do you loan him out?"

Cloud's eyes widened in shock and he felt Sephiroth's arms wrap tightly around him.

"Rufus, you're drunk," Sephiroth said.

"Yes, thank Gaia, took long enough. I thought I'd never get there," Rufus finished his glass and grabbed another.

Sephiroth took the opportunity to wheel Cloud away. "I'm sorry, Cloud. He's better than his father but he can be a real ass when he drinks."

"It's OK. You're here; I'm fine."

Cloud leaned into Sephiroth who squeezed him affectionately, thinking it was about time to leave. If they left early enough they could avoid-

"Ah, Sephiroth," a nasal voice accosted them from the entrance to the foyer. The owner of the voice was just arriving from his usual nocturnal activities at the lab and was blocking their way out.

"Good evening, professor Hojo," Sephiroth said, his voice polite but cold, his whole frame going stiff.

"So this is your young man everyone talks about. Cloud."

Hojo leaned forward and lifted his chin to peer down at Cloud through his glasses. Cloud shrank into his larger protector and felt himself pulled backwards away from the scientist.

"I don't remember seeing him before," Hojo continued, and leaned in closer to Cloud despite Sephiroth's obvious desire to separate them. His neck stretched so fantastically forward that Cloud couldn't help but imagine him a turtle.

"He's shining, but not getting injections? You're bringing him up all the way organically? How is that going?" Hojo turned his attention to Sephiroth.

"Just fine, thank-you." Sephiroth's voice was getting an edge on it despite his practiced control. He had to fight an urge to put Cloud all the way behind him. And knock Hojo flat.

"I'd be happy to take a look at him, make sure everything is all right?" Hojo smiled, his mouth thin, lipless, and iguana like.

"He has his levels monitored by the staff. He's doing fine. If you'll excuse us we were just on our way out."

Sephiroth moved them quickly towards the door, changing the arm Cloud was under to keep himself between Cloud and Hojo.

"Coats," Sephiroth said at the coatcheck, in a voice that instilled alacrity. "How are your feet Cloud?"

"Blistered."

"Call a cab for us please," Sephiroth said and was told there should be ShinRa limos waiting outside at the disposal of the guests. Sephiroth pushed Cloud out before they even had their coats fully on. The snow was heavier now, and Cloud flipped up his hood for the few seconds it took to reach the nearest limo. Sephiroth all but shoved Cloud into the back seat ahead of him then instructed the driver to take them to the main tower. Once on the way he sat back in the roomy, soft seat and rubbed a hand across his chest.

"We survived," Sephiroth said with a relieved sigh.

Cloud giggled and lay down with his head in Sephiroth's lap, his mako blue eyes gleaming up at him in the darkness.

"Thank-you, Cloud," Sephiroth said.

"For what?"

"For everything tonight. I have never enjoyed that party before. Without you it's complete drudgery for me."

Cloud smiled and Sephiroth ran his fingers through the blonde hair, stroked Cloud's face, wishing they were home already. Then Cloud nuzzled, that head motion that affected Sephiroth so strongly, only this time Clouds head was in his...

"Cloud!" Sephiroth chastised gently, shifting to accommodate the stiffening in his groin.

Cloud only smiled broader and nuzzled again, then turned his face so he could gnaw softly on the hardened shaft beneath that incredible fabric he had been admiring earlier.

Sephiroth laughed a little. Normally Cloud was nervous about this type play in even semi-public places, but with a few drinks that nervousness went right out the window. Sephiroth tapped on the glass between them and the driver and made a circular motion with his index finger. The driver, seeing only one head where there had been two, grinned and understood. He drove slowly on the snow-slick road past the ShinRa tower to make another loop around the big complex.

When Sephiroth looked back down Cloud had already had his fly undone and was laying small kisses on Sephiroth's lower abdomen, his face obscured by the folds of Sephiroth's blood red shirt that was now freed from his pants.

"Let me help you out here, Cloud."

Sephiroth lifted his hips and helped Cloud pull dress pants and black silk boxers down to mid-thigh. He laid his head back over the headrest and let Cloud work, first running one beautiful smooth cheek against velvet skin, then his tongue, up and down, flicking over the tip. Then those soft lips, wet and warm, formed a circle around the tip and drew him inside. Sephiroth sighed, head still back, watching the flakes of snow flash in the streetlights through the rear window. He sunk his fingers up to the webbing in Cloud's hair and followed lightly Cloud's head motions up, then down. His other hand he touched the delicate skin on Cloud's throat, tracing downwards and regrettably bumping into the collar on Cloud's new shirt. He changed his goals and let those fingers roam up the back of Cloud's neck, then up and over an ear. Sephiroth's body jerked slightly as Cloud sucked upward and sent him to the stage where every stroke felt like electric ecstasy. Cloud took this cue to slide his hand over one bare, muscular thigh to gently caress tightened testicles and brush along the hardened perineum ridge right behind.

"Cloud-" Sephiroth breathed, almost silently, and then again, "Cloud." His breath was loud now in his own throat, his eyes defocused and half closed, lips parted. He had mastered that desire to pull on Cloud's head while he did this, and instead relaxed into the feeling, and into trust. Trust that Cloud was not only taking care of his need, but also protecting him in this moment of weakness.

"Cloud!" Sephiroth's eyes flew open and his whole body stiffened and shuddered as he came into Cloud's mouth. Cloud pulled and sucked the last bit home as he withdrew his head upward, then watched Sephiroth's now spent erection ebb and drift slowly downward until his phallus lay back between his legs. Sephiroth tilted Cloud's face up to him. Cloud licked his beautiful lips, reddened from their work, and Sephiroth pulled them together for an impassioned kiss.

"You are _so_ going to get it when we get home," Sephiroth said.

"Good." Cloud smiled.


	5. Winternight 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: The second part of the holiday fluff. After this I'm going to try and concentrate on my own holiday and not post until the new year.**

**OH, and I totally missed the grand opportunity to describe Hojo more thoroughly at the party. As Adwynna pointed out, he would absolutely be wearing some awful lab coat! And smelling like chemicals! **

"Whoa, that is_ nice_," Zack's eyes were round with admiration as he examined Cloud's new treasure. It had the mark of Kusanagi and Sons on the blade, a very old maker from Wutai that was wiped out during the war. The steel was reported to be fabulous, maybe even on par with Masamune or his Buster.

"I didn't even know you could get this kind of thing in Midgar," Zack said, turning the blade over again the light. It was big, but within Cloud's ability. Similar to the weapon he used to carry as a Second Class, just much... nicer.

"I think it was some sort of black market shop," Cloud whispered. "I was imagining this romantic, Winternight shopping trip, and we went down to the lower plate to about the scariest sector I've ever seen."

Zack laughed, scary probably _was_ Sephiroth's idea of a romantic shopping trip. "Lemme guess, Sector Two?"

"Yeah. There were all these Wutai swords there, all kind of beat up."

"This one was probably used in the war." Zack now held it out away from him, as if he was afraid it might transform into a snake and bite him. "Some of them have bad histories."

"I guess. Because Seph made me hold onto a piece of sensing materia and keep my eyes closed while he put one after another in my hand. Some of them made me hear screaming and I got dizzy."

"What did you feel with this one?"

"It was the weirdest thing, it felt light, _I_ felt light, like neither of us weighed anything. And it was like it laughed at me in a friendly way when I thought that."

"Huh," Zack said, now bringing the blade closer to himself again. His mind flashed back to the fist time he had held the Buster. He had been so heartbroken at that moment, and he had expected the big sword to be heavy. It had seemed so at first, far too heavy to bear, but then it felt like... love. Responsibility. And pride.

"Looks new," Zack said, unable to share any of his own still-raw experience.

"Yeah, we took it to some other shop and they re-wrapped the hilt and buffed the blade and sharpened it. The sharpening part was a big deal actually; only a special stone sharpens it." Clouds face suddenly went from rapt to unhappy.

"What?" Zack asked.

"I need to get him something. For Winternight. I have zero ideas."

"Hmm. What does Seph like?"

"He likes what he's got. He likes that big leather coat. He likes Masamune. He likes his hair. He likes his expensive caterer and his expensive tailor. He likes his mastered materia even though he doesn't need it for most stuff, least not attacks. He likes high class stuff, and I'm..."

"Poor?"

"Yeah."

"Well don't sweat that, Soldiers are always broke at least until they make Second Class. Actually I'm still broke. But not everything he likes costs. He likes you."

"He already has me."

"And you've done everything for him imaginable?"

"Zack!"

Zack grinned. "You ever write him a poem, make him something, plan an event, pamper him with something unexpected? Paint a picture? C'mon, Spikey, surely you have a talent – I mean besides the obvious."

Zack expected another reproachful look but Cloud had become lost in thought. He was thinking of the Winternight party at the ShinRa townhouse, how they stood together and listened to the chorus, Sephiroth had closed his eyes...

"I can sing," Cloud said.

"What?"

"I can sing. Or I could, I haven't for a long time. It's not exactly the type of thing that makes a guy friends in Nibelheim. More like gets the crap beat out of you."

Cloud swallowed and moved his head around to try and feel his throat, wondering how this would go since his voice changed. It never really cracked on him as it had dropped, more like it had slid gently into his current register. He started a few bars of an old folk melody in a tenor sweet and clear. Zack stared at him with mouth open.

"You _have_ to do that for him," Zack said, and Cloud grinned happily.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

'Twas the eve before Winternight, up in the ShinRa Tower  
Soldiers stood nervous, a blonde leader and six followers  
"I've not been up here before," said one with bright amber eyes  
"We're not allowed on this floor, we're all going to die!"

"Stop being a wuss!" snapped the one with black hedgehog hair  
"You're OK, you're with us." But they continued to glare.  
"Well you two have no worries," they groused en masse  
"The General loves Cloud, and you Zack are First Class!"

"And plus, Zack, you bastard, you aren't even singing!"  
"I tried, and I can't!"  
"We know! Our ears are still bleeding!  
Providing the beer is your only task,  
It had better be good, or we'll have your ass!"

"Shut up you guys, He'll hear your bitching!'  
Cloud wondered about this plan, what had he been thinking?  
Six guys who could sing seemed better than one  
An old song from feudal times, of loyalty and love

It seemed perfect for a commander, so highly esteemed.  
They all wanted to give him something, or so it had seemed  
But now at the moment, the very time to act,  
They were fretting like ninnies, they were going to sing flat!

Just then the door opened, green flashed in suspicion  
The Soldiers stood frozen, aspects of submission  
Before he could ask, what did they think they were doing?  
They started their song, the gift they were giving.

Sephiroth frowned at knock on his door. He was making good use of his time while Cloud was out still finishing a few things. The tree was all ready, and he had grabbed a quick shower and just managed to pull on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. But Cloud would be home soon and the General wasn't really interested in having distractions. Like annoying idiots pestering him. What he opened the door to wasn't anything he could have predicted. A half dozen of his men, Cloud in the middle, stood in some sort of formation on his doorstep. He had only time for a scowl when they started... singing. In three part harmony, no less. Sephiroth was so stunned by the scene that he actually forgot himself and let his jaw hang open slightly, staring from one man to the next. The pitching wasn't perfect, but their timing was precise. He expected that from Soldiers, at least. After a few moments he figured out that only the refrain was in harmony, and also that Cloud was their leader, based on the group's attitude. Zack's role was unclear. He wasn't singing. Maybe he was muscle to keep the guys from bolting; several of the younger ones looked green with nervousness.

But the true glory of the piece was the third and last verse that Cloud took solo. Sephiroth wasn't the only one stilled by the sound. The others also listened, rapt, and surely they had heard this many times before as the group had clearly practiced for this. Sephiroth had no idea Cloud had this type of singing voice. Cloud didn't even sing in the shower. Not only was the timbre strong and full, he was obviously trained, years by the sound of it. It reminded him of the clear mountain air and beautiful sky of his wilderness retreat that he once shared with Cloud. He made a mental note to make sure to have the young man do this for him again.

When they stopped after the last refrain the hallway was so silent they could hear the fluorescent lights buzzing. The whole group stood nervously in front of the General's door, none daring to look up at him. Except Cloud, of course, who looked at him with a wide eyed, hopeful gaze. And Zack, who was struggling to hold back laughter that leaked out in his eyes.

"Thank-you, gentlemen," Sephiroth said, relieving some of the tension of the group.

Cautiously the men chanced to look up.

"Happy Winternight, General." one of the young Third Classes ventured. The rest repeated, and another awkward silence followed.

"OK!" Zack said, clearly enjoying their discomfort. "Time for us to go!"

The group, minus Cloud, quickly gathered around Zack who led them towards the elevator, the promise of free beer already consuming their thoughts.

For a long moment Cloud and Sephiroth stared at each other through the doorway, neither able to speak. Sephiroth wanted to say thank-you, he knew he should, nobody had ever given him a gift like this before. But he just couldn't seem to get the words out. He settled for reaching for Cloud bodily and lifting him in through the door. Normally Cloud objected to being picked up, feeling it was undignified, but Sephiroth sometimes found it too hard to resist. He kissed Cloud then laid his cheek along Cloud's face.

"I love you so much," he whispered into Cloud's ear.

"I love you too," Cloud whispered back, the hair on the back of his neck standing up as it did with every one of these admissions. He opened his eyes and noticed something different about their tree. It had presents under it. Wrapped presents.

"You got more presents?" Cloud asked, surprised and feeling a little worried. He knew that sword had already run the General ten thousand gil at least.

"They're for you, but things I wanted for you. So I guess they're really for me."

"Oh," said Cloud. "Those kind of presents. Like getting your mom power tools."

Sephiroth puzzled over the reference for a moment. He decided power tools for a mom must be considered inappropriate because it conferred a request by the giver to have something made for them out of the power tools. It still didn't make much sense to him, but he couldn't let little confusions like that slow him down; if he did he'd spend his whole life second guessing. With Cloud in front of him in his arms he dropped them both to the floor in front of the tree, grabbed a small box, and handed to it Cloud. "This one first."

Cloud examined the box. It was pretty, but that wasn't normal gift wrap around it. He turned it around several times and finally recognized the glossy background from a Soldier recruitment poster, one with Sephiroth on it front and center. The General was forever tearing the things down from the walls in the Soldier areas, and Soldiers, amused with the game, were forever putting them up. Cloud had owned one like it himself before he joined Soldier. It probably still hung in his bedroom back home. The background had some nice red sunset over what he thought was conquered Wutai. It always reminded him of fire. Cloud opened the wrapping.

"You ever going to tell me how they got you to pose for that poster?" Cloud asked.

"Nope."

It was the same answer Cloud always got. Cloud smiled. Someday he'd tell him.

After clawing through massive amounts of clear tape Cloud finally got the box underneath. Which contained another box. This one opened on a hinge, and held something he recognized, a style of earring a lot of the guys in Soldier wore, a gemstone surrounded by a wide tapered metal band that kept it flush to the earlobe to prevent the thing from catching on anything. This gem was white, and Cloud's eyes went wide. A diamond? Had Sephiroth given him a diamond? But there was something wrong with it, every time he had seen a diamond before it kind of took his breath away. Maybe it was the light, because glass wasn't really the General's style.

"It's a diamond," Sephiroth said, either detecting Cloud's confusion or simply anticipating the question. "But it's been cut in a way no sane person would cut a diamond. It's quite flat, so it doesn't reflect light properly. I believe "fire" is the term for that."

Now Cloud was completely confused.

"It needs to be flat because the area underneath is specially constructed. To hold this..."

Sephiroth pulled a green orb out of his pocket. One of his mastered materia.

"Go ahead, try to sink it in."

Cloud took the materia gingerly and tapped it to the face of the gem. Nothing. He concentrated harder, trying to imagine the materia spinning away from their world like a funnel into nothingness, weightlessness, size...less... ness. That was the part that always gave Cloud trouble. But suddenly the orb shrank and sucked away from him. The gem remained white, but lit up with that luminous "fire" that Cloud associated with diamonds.

"Why isn't it green?" Cloud asked.

"I don't know. Something about the resonant structure of the carbon bonds in the diamond or some such thing. Pull it back out."

Cloud concentrated on the orb appearing between his fingers and it did. Then he put it back. This thing was way easier to work than the beat-up materia gear Third Classes were issued.

"I want you to wear this always. I want to know that whatever happens you at least have a piece of materia that can handle Cure3. Or a good attack. Try not to get your ear cut off."

Cloud undid his silver stud in his left ear. "Is that white gold?" Cloud asked, referring to the bezel.

"Platinum," Sephiroth said, sliding the post through the small hole and attaching the back. It was a particularly tight fit that snapped a little into place to keep it secure. He was pleased that Cloud had chosen the left. Like many Soldiers Cloud had both ears pierced, but left was the ear that Soldiers put endearments from somebody special.

Cloud fingered the earring. His own piece of mastered materia; no other Third Class had such a thing. And a diamond. Sort of.

"What?" Sephiroth asked. He had caught the momentary frown.

"Nothing. Thank-you," Cloud said, and darted forward to kiss Sephiroth's cheek. He thought surely the general wouldn't pick up on that, something so slight...

"No there was something. You're disappointed?"

Cloud shook his head. Fine time for the General to sprout some supernatural ability to read emotions. But he couldn't lie, and once Sephiroth latched on to something there was no getting away from it.

"It's stupid," Cloud said. "It's just that when I first saw it, you know, diamond. I thought my first diamond from you would be more romantic, less... practical."

"Your first diamond? You are expecting more?"

"No, that's not what I meant..." Cloud shook his head. This was coming out all wrong. He stuck his face in his hands, berating himself silently._What a way to ruin a perfect moment, Strife_.

Sephiroth tightened his grip on Cloud, pulling him against his stomach and chest so that his lips were close to Cloud's ear.

"You were thinking a diamond, the perfect symbol of beauty, love, and permanence, should have no purpose? That its uselessness is part of what makes it grand as a romantic gesture? Like this one?"

Sephiroth produced a small item in his fingertips. It was a matching earring to the one he was wearing, only this time the fire in the gem was already lit. Cloud gasped.

"This one is cut correctly, a full karat. As if I didn't notice you had _two_ extra holes in your head."

Cloud took the earring carefully, it was beautiful. They both were, but this one was just as Sephiroth had said. Useless. Sephiroth unfastened Cloud's other silver earring, finding something wildly intimate about doing this ordinary, personal thing for him. Maybe part of his mind recognized it as undressing. Sephiroth stroked the pad of one finger on Cloud's now naked earlobe, over the small artificial hole there, then kissed it before putting in the new diamond.

"I want to see!" Cloud popped up, going to the guest bath in the hall. He turned his head from side to side in the mirror. As hard as he tried he couldn't tell one from the other. They looked identical.

"The materia holder is meant to be hidden. Secret," Sephiroth said, coming up behind Cloud and sliding his arms around him. "As far as I know not even Turks know about the guy who made it for me. Don't mention it to anyone, nobody knows, except us. And Zack."

Cloud caught Sephiroth's eye in the mirror. He should have known. Somebody had coached him on the diamond thing, he'd played Cloud from moment one. But he couldn't complain; Zack had helped him with his gift too. He saw Sephiroth appraising the new additions attached to his head.

"They don't do you justice," Sephiroth said. "Not in their beauty, their strength, or their symbolism for how much your love means to me."

Cloud twisted around in Sephiroth's arms and kissed him. This whole week had been the best Winternight he'd ever had.

"C'mon, there's two more," Sephiroth said, pulling Cloud back into the living room, away from the bedroom where Cloud's mind was wandering.

They regained their spot on the floor and Sephiroth passed another gift to Cloud. This one was big and kind of floppy. He opened and turned it over a couple of times.

"A blanket?" Cloud looked at the thing perplexed. It was nice, very soft. Royal blue. Maybe it was for his quarters. He opened the last present, a small box. It was a bottle of lube. Cloud looked from the blanket to the bottle in his hand, finally putting things together. Although the General had told him once he didn't care where Cloud's bodily fluids landed he was still a neat freak whenever he could plan ahead. The blanket was probably machine washable.

"You want to make love in front of the tree," Cloud said.

Sephiroth nodded, a familiar light in his green eyes. Cloud undid the blanket and they spread it on the pristine carpet. Sephiroth doused the room light, leaving only the glow from the tiny white bulbs on the tree. Cloud let his shirt be pulled up and over his head, then lay down, lifted his hips, and let his pants be peeled away as well. He stretched and wriggled on the blanket which felt soft and luxurious under his bare skin. He wondered about the color; it was the same intense blue as the shirt Sephiroth had picked out for him for the party. The man maybe had a thing for this color with Cloud.

Sephiroth watched his young lover for a long moment, the low light casting shadows that accented the curves of Cloud's muscles, the twinkling of the tree lights catching and moving in the diamonds on his ears. Sephiroth stretched out a hand and held it above Cloud so that it that gently brushed skin each time the young man undulated upwards. He brought his lips down to kiss Cloud's outstretched neck, his firm chest and hardened nipples, the ridges of his abdomen. At Cloud's sex he stopped again to admire how pink and perfect the flesh was, how straight his member and how tight the skin over it was. He smiled at Cloud's pubic thatch, a shade darker than the hair on his head but still clearly blond. _True blond_ he thought absently as he often did at the sight. There' weren't actually many of those around. Sephiroth took Cloud's length into his mouth and listened with satisfaction as the young Soldier moaned.

Cloud ran his hand blindly down Sephiroth's torso and past his waistband. The General didn't have anything on underneath, and Cloud easily located the long springy shaft beneath the soft fabric. Cloud squeezed and Sephiroth suddenly found he had had enough of his clothes. He sat up to removed his sweats and T-shirt then laid his body on top of Cloud's, kissed him deeply and let his weight press them together. Cloud immediately started to grind his hips upward, creating pressure and rubbing on both of them.

"Feels... good..." Cloud moaned between kisses.

Sephiroth stopped kissing Cloud so he could catch his breath. It did feel good, mind losing kind of good. Cloud had a gift for grinding his hips just in the right way, he could have exploded right here between them. But he wanted Cloud completely tonight, to sink into him and disappear, here on the floor in the apartment they shared, in the light from this ancient symbol of the celebration of human life that he had never enjoyed before.

Sephiroth lifted himself up on his arms, and Cloud nodded, understanding what was wanted. Wordlessly they coordinated their dance of position and stroking and thrusting and lifting until both crested beyond the confines of their bodies where the mind becomes vacant and the soul is momentarily freed. Limp and exhausted Sephiroth moved off of Cloud until they were side by side. He stroked Cloud's flushed face and stared into the bright blue eyes.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this. To deserve you. Probably not all that killing and war making and cruelty I've spent most of my life on."

"Maybe it's something you haven't done yet," Cloud said, laughing a little and sliding forward on the blue blanket to kiss Sephiroth again. Tomorrow was a holiday, even at ShinRa. They could do this all night if they wanted.


	6. New Years

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: I hadn't meant to write this, but a couple of songs made me do it. Listening to One Winged Angel while on the elliptical I got to thinking Sephiroth has to get out there and kick some ass. So far we've only been wallowing in his tender side. The other was thinking about this New Years song, Auld Lang Syne. It's such a sad thing, looking back, and these guys (like everyone in this universe) have a lot to mourn. So it's a New Year's piece, and the song at the end is meant to be put to the melody of Auld Lang Syne. I only wish I could have posted more timely, as it is I rushed and it's probably riddled with errors. WARNING: No lemons (sorry).  
**

Cloud and his partner, another new Third Class named Joey, coughed at the side of the road while they watched the emergency medics load up the unconscious forms of people they had pulled out of the building. It smoldered now, covered in ice spells. They had gotten everyone out this time, but only just. The building was already engulfed when they had arrived at a dead sprint after their work of breaking up a mob fight. Breaking up the mob fight had involved breaking a lot of bones of the perpetrators. Oddly enough Cloud was grateful for the painful smoke in his lungs and the terror of the fire. They displaced the other thing that had taken up residence in his mind, the disturbing sounds of bones cracking under his blows. He felt a touch to his back as Zack passed by.

"You two good?" Zack asked. "We'll be moving out in a minute. Looters, Eighth Street. Still happy about New Years, Spike?"

Zack grinned wickedly and Cloud squinted at him, annoyed. Three days ago he had been happy about it, when he had innocently asked Zack what he was doing for New Years.

_"What do you think, same thing you are," Zack had snapped, uncharacteristically irritable. "You, I, and every other Soldier in Midgar are patrolling. The whole town goes crazy. Rioting, looting, setting the place on fire... and every drunk and thug and piece of shit is wearing masks and costumes so you can't see their eyes and can't tell what they're packing... and __we are going to get lower plate, because Seph always takes lower plate and he always hand picks his team. I hate New Years."_

Cloud brushed at his pants in a futile effort and joined his squad. He was discovering he hated New Years too.

"Everyone OK?" Zack was moving through their group of about a dozen, touching each man, looking into his eyes, scanning them for injuries they might be too proud to admit. "If you've taken too much smoke you must stay behind with the medics. Keep in mind that you are responsible for making that call. If you slow us down later you put us in danger."

Cloud inhaled deeply, checking for the amount of burning as they had been trained. He could hold it for five seconds and still manage not to cough. His enhanced body could handle this much smoke inhalation. One of the guys behind him coughed spasmodically. Zack shot that Third Class a stern look.

"I guess I'm out," the man said, not without reluctance.

He left their group and joined the medics who immediately strapped an oxygen mask onto him. Materia was no good for this type of thing; it was like sunburn, or frostbite. Or old age. They waited for Sephiroth to finish talking to the emergency people. Next to Cloud Joey wiped some soot out of his eyes.

"Why isn't he sooty?" Joey asked, looking towards the General, his voice hoarse from the smoke. "Doesn't dirt stick to him?"

Cloud shook his head slowly. He had no idea; maybe Hojo had blended Sephiroth's skin with teflon or something.

"Move out!" Sephiroth swept past them, his voice strong and clear despite the fact he had also been in the smoky building. Cloud began to wonder about teflon on the General's vocal chords. Their squad took off for Eighth Street at a jog.

ccccccccccc

"OK, they're coming." A lean faced man adjusted a small radio attached to his ear. "A and B teams are in position, we have about five minutes."

Ten men moved away from him to take up their own positions, knowing what to do, each fitting his ears with radio receiver ear plugs. All except Pato, a young new recruit captain Barstow had become fond of.

"I don't like this, cap." Pato said, earplugs poised in his hand.

"It's just cold feet, son. It's normal on your first mission."

"I don't like the end objective of this mission. Once we take these guys, they're going to experiment on them. We're no better than ShinRa."

"Except we're not killing the planet," Barstow said, "If we fail, who's going to stop ShinRa? And if somebody doesn't, there won't be a planet left to live on. We need to get through their defenses to do that. We need to understand Soldier weaknesses better to do that. Fire against fire, that's all."

"And you trust the Doc? And his damn sorcerer?"

The captain's eyes betrayed that he did not. "Tough choices for tough times. Put your earplugs in."

Pato sullenly twisted his earplugs into his ears and took his position. Barstow moved up to the watch position next to one of his men, a seasoned fighter and long time ShinRa hater.

"I see them," the lookout said over the tiny microphone on the wand skimming his cheek. He adjusted his night vision binoculars. "Holy shit!"

Suddenly the man was scooting back away from his post, trembling. "You didn't say Sephiroth was with them!"

Barstow frowned. "So? He's more enhanced than the others, he'll drop quicker."

"No way, you can't be sure, he's... unnatural."

"They're all unnatural," Barstow said, trying with limited success to coax his man back to his position at the window. "That's one of the reasons this will work. But if you're that worried we'll just have Dris sniper him out first."

"No!" the lookout shook his head frantically. "As soon as Dris, or anyone raises a weapon with intent he'll feel it and move out of the line of fire. With speed that's going to scare your pants off. He's uncanny." The lookout finally managed to brave his way back to the window and take up the binoculars in hands that shook. "Oh, hell."

The group of Soldiers had stopped moving, and most of the squad had dispersed off to the sides. The General shone bright as day in the night vision- he was looking side to side.

"He knows we're here." the lookout said. He'd been in Wutai, he'd seen the devil in action, and had barely escaped with his life.

"He _can't_ know we're here," Barstow said, grabbing the binoculars. He focused on General Sephiroth. The man did seem wary of something. Well the targets weren't in the best position, but it would have to do. They only needed to capture a few of them alive.

"I hope you guys all have your plugs in," he said over the general channel. "Cisco, crank that thing up as high as it goes, and hit it."

cccccccccccccccc

"What are we doing?" Joey asked. "I can't see."

He and Cloud, both on the defense team, were crammed into a door well together, weapons drawn, trying to get a look at the street without violating the order to maintain cover. The General had barked the order suddenly, in the middle of a deserted street, and now here they huddled like rats in a rainstorm. Zack was out in the street with Sephiroth and the three other guys handling point.

"Do you feel it?" Sephiroth asked softly. Zack was the only one with a high enough level to possibly catch this one.

"Yes, but I don't know what it is." Zack tried to hone in on the feeling. Tension, waiting, not close, up ahead. Danger. Maybe some sort of ambush, but what kind of slum crazies would ambush Soldiers?

"We need somebody to circle to the back, see what's going on. Who's the quietest?"

Zack gave an apologetic look. "Cloud."

Sephiroth took a deep breath. He thought so too but where Cloud was concerned he liked to have confirmation to guard against his own subjectivity. "OK. I want you and Cloud-."

He was cut off by a horrific, high pitched sound and Zack went down next to him in a heap, clutching his head. Sephiroth didn't know exactly what this was, but he always recognized an attack when it hit him. He threw Zack and another man into the side alley, then scooped the other two off the ground and took them with him as he went off to the other side. The street where they had been standing filled with an explosive bright light, but what should have been an ear splitting explosion was only a muffled thud. He seemed to have gone mostly deaf, and maybe that was a good thing because he could now see blood leaking out between the fingers of his men where they grabbed the sides of their heads. And apparently screaming, although he couldn't hear that either. Small shards started flying around in the street, loosed from buildings and pavement. Gunfire. They weren't shooting to hit his men, unless they were really stupid, because all of his guys were still under cover. He didn't think they were stupid; the gunfire was probably laid down to keep them pinned. And pinned they were, he seemed to be the only one not crippled by whatever it was that had initiated this attack. A sound weapon of some kind. He could hear it, he didn't like it, but it wasn't causing him distress. His ear canals had that full feeling he often got when heavy artillery went off. Like there was something in them. Sephiroth peeked around the corner, if the enemy wanted them to stay put that was exactly what they couldn't do. But he couldn't get his guys to stand let alone retreat even if he could communicate the command. That left only the option of going forward, right into that gunfire. Masamune wasn't the best weapon for bullet deflection, even with his speed and finely tuned precog. For this wider was better. He looked across the street and smiled thinly to see one of his guys struggling to stand up, an enormous blade coming slowly off the ground with him. A pair of green jewels looked up and shone at him through the darkness.

"Good boy," Sephiroth said to himself, then gave the hand signal to advance. Both he and Zack jumped into the street simultaneously, where they could now see their attackers advancing and firing as they closed on their position. There were six men in the street, but they were also being hailed on from above, from the buildings in front of them. Snipers, right above where they would have been in another minute had Sephiroth not called a halt. The two Soldiers swung with frightening speed, deflecting bullets, occasionally returning them right back to the shooters. Zack was using efficient circular motions with the big Buster sword, and managing to keep up even as he wretched, gasped, and stumbled. At the moment Sephiroth was extremely grateful for Zack's famous and often irritating stubbornness, but he wasn't going to last long like this. He stepped behind the cover Zack provided and made to jump clear to the midst of the street group, through the overhead fire. With luck he wouldn't get hit at all, but if he did... well he could survive a few hits.

Cloud could see none of what was going on in the street. The pain in his head was unbearable, though he had no choice but to bear it. He couldn't get his legs or any of his body to respond or move himself away from the pain. Just moving his head gave him a nausea inducing vertigo that made it impossible to even stay upright. Joey threw up next to him, partly on him, but Cloud barely noticed. Even his eyeballs hurt. Warm, sticky liquid ran down both sides of his neck, from his ears, he realized. He remembered back to some of his voice training of his childhood, when they had studied pictures of the ear. This pain and disorientation was all from a sound, an intense sound, his eardrums had ruptured and his inner ear was bleeding and leaking fluid, filling up the cochleas and causing vertigo. Whoever it was must have had a hell of a loudspeaker. And amplifier. Power. Amplifiers needed power. He managed to unclip his PHS from his belt. He wouldn't be able to talk, or be heard for that matter over the noise even if he could. After several slow and painful button pushes he had the text screen up. He stopped, his body consumed with the act of breathing, then willed himself to continue. It was slow work for a guy who with mako enhanced speed with his thumb could normally text 60 words a minute. But he got something keyed in:

_**Dying- cut power**_

Cloud pushed the speed dial for Major Niven. Niven, who had been so testy all day for having to stay behind and take care of HQ. Somebody had to do it, and although he hated New Years as much as anybody no Soldier liked to stay home.

Cloud pushed himself to hands and knees to peek out into the street. A small corner of brick exploded next to him, showering him in the red dust. He looked at it stupidly before realizing that had been from a bullet. Out in the street two lone figures stood against the onslaught. Sephiroth, who looked smooth and strong, a beacon in his despair. Zack was along side him, clearly struggling, maybe with the last of what he had. Cloud clenched his teeth and growled. If Zack could get out there so could they. He grabbed Joey under the arm pulled up, half hoisting the other man and half using him for support. They couldn't go out there in the line of fire, they'd be useless without precog and they wouldn't have that until their level hit 200, First Class. But that didn't mean they couldn't try to flank, using the buildings as cover. Cloud looked out and could see guys coming to the same conclusion, their two First Classes, including their General Commander, were out there alone, fighting for all of their lives. Cloud caught the eye of the pair across the street from them and made a curling motion with his hand, the signal to circle and flank. He saw the two pairs of green shining eyes nod in understanding.

Cloud and his partner, holding one another for balance, stumbled out of their hiding place and into a side alley. They followed it past heaps of garbage and cardboard boxes, past a homeless man lying on the ground, his head in a pool of blood. Cloud wondered if sound could kill an ordinary man, and if so how many were biting it tonight. If the pain was any measure the sound was barely muted by the buildings; there'd be no protection for anyone in this zone.

They came to a chain link fence spanning the alley. Most of the alleys on the lower plate had some sort of barrier strapped across them, in order to impede movement of people. The whole lower plate was like this, a cage for animals. Cloud and Joey tried to climb, blindly feeling their way, barely able to keep eyes open through the pain. But they couldn't make progress, the noise would increase, the pain would follow, there would be a lull and then the horrific screeching would return and they would crumple again. It occurred to Cloud as he dry heaved for the fifth time that his body was quickly healing up the thin tissues in his ears only to have the damage repeat. Maybe other tissues in his head were being affected as well. Maybe his brain was exploding. Then, quite suddenly, the light at the mouth of their alley winked out and the pain lifted. The noise was gone, save for a residual ringing in his ears.

"Thank-you, major," Cloud whispered, finding his muscles and limbs better under his control.

The mean, stingy lights above them, mounted on and powered by the upper plate, still cast enough light for the young Soldiers to see. Now it was only the nausea slowing them down. And the balance thing. Cloud landed neatly enough on the far side of the fence, then promptly fell over. Joey landed on top of him.

They ran, stumbling occasionally and bouncing off of brick walls that scraped their skin through their uniforms. They moved along the maze of back streets with Cloud sensing his way and Joey, rather lost now, following unquestioningly. Cloud was their team navigator, after all, he'd never got them lost in the field even when the maps were wrong. Then, after one last sharp turn they could see the action. The General was already there, slicing his way through a knot of men who were falling before him like so much wheat under the sickle. But the intermittent shield strokes he made above his head indicated he was getting fired on from above. Cloud motioned upwards to his partner, and they clambered to the fire escape 12 feet above them, busted through a door that normally only opened from the inside, and then began a frantic search through what appeared to be an abandoned office building. Using their shoulder lights in the pitch blackness they split up, busting out doors and checking rooms, until Cloud finally saw a sniper. He was standing in front of the window with his back to Cloud, head bent in an unmistakable firing posture. Cloud came forward in a rush and sliced the man diagonally from his shoulder to opposite hip, the blade exiting the body with a sickening sucking noise. The man slumped to the floor, the rifle tumbling out the window. Cloud stared momentarily at what he had done. The man was wearing earplugs and couldn't have heard him coming, and Cloud knew that even in his degraded condition he could have easily knocked him out. He needn't have killed him.

But Cloud hadn't the luxury for such reflection. Through the window he could see more muzzle flashes and hear the gunfire from several other windows. He stuck his head out and counted to the right, two windows over was one more, then another two windows beyond that. He ran out of his room and to the one two doors down. There Joey was already taking care of that one. Two doors more and Cloud kicked in the door and found another sniper. This one caught sight of Cloud's light and turned, weapon coming to aim at Cloud but Cloud backhanded him across the temple before he could take aim. Cloud had hit him so hard he wondering if he had killed this one as well. He looked out the window in time to see the attackers scattering, running full out trying to escape down the road. Sephiroth easily leapt beyond them, cutting of their retreat and with callous, smooth precision hacked them apart. He didn't even have to run to catch them, the confused and terrified men fell as he approached, screaming something, maybe for mercy, a plea that Cloud could not decipher and Sephiroth would not grant. Cloud remembered one of the things he had heard about Sephiroth, long ago it seemed, in the relative innocence of his cadet training. The General never took prisoners. Unless he wanted them for something.

Then Sephiroth jumped to a window sill across from Cloud, three stories straight into the air, and while clinging to the edge of the window well he reached into the window and threw a sniper to the ground below. Cloud watched the man fall and become a rumpled pile on the pavement below. Other Soldiers were coming into view now, and as Cloud watched another sniper fall to the earth he was unsure if the sickness in his stomach could be attributed completely to fluid in his ears. The gunfire had ceased and he turned behind him to see Yu, one of the Second Classes, come into his room. Cloud gave the OK sign and Yu signaled to another guy in the hallway as he continued on, presumably clearing the area. Cloud looked down at the sniper at his feet. The man was still breathing. He shouldered the sniper's rifle by its strap and slung the unconscious man over the other shoulder, no differently than the fire victims he had carried earlier. Cloud was going to take at least one prisoner alive.

He carried his man down the stairs and into the street where Soldiers were regrouping. They had gathered in an area off to the side of the street, in the mouth of an alley with lookouts on all points. But all seemed quiet now. The General was back down from his sniper tossing activity and was now in their center, doing something near the sidewalk. He looked up as Cloud approached.

"Thank-you, Cloud," Sephiroth said, "Set him down next to the others,"

Cloud complied, seeing his prisoner made three. Three live ones. On his way over to their new operations area he must have stepped over 30 dead bodies, or parts of bodies, the degree of dismemberment made it hard to get an impression of the total number. He knew he should care, but his whole attention was taken by looking to see if there were any Soldiers among them. He hadn't seen any. He looked around now, trying to determine if everyone was there. All around him Soldiers were clapping hands to the shoulders of buddies, the sight of each one of them welling up feelings of intense affection, love even. Even for the guys he didn't particularly like, at the moment they were just as precious to him. They were alive.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to see Zack. A Zack full of soot that had turned into some sort of muddy, bloody concoction smeared over every part of him. Cloud supposed he looked no better.

"Can you hear me?" Zack asked, snapping his fingers on one side then the other of Cloud's head.

Cloud nodded that he could. "Dizzy, though."

"This will help," Zack said, holding a piece of materia and touching each of Cloud's ears. Then Zack gently pushed him back and away, into a group of other Third Classes.

"You can hear?" Joey asked Cloud. Cloud nodded.

"Did you kill any of those snipers?"

Cloud nodded again.

"Me too," Joey continued, "I've never killed anyone before. Monsters sure, but that's different..."

Cloud stared straight ahead. He'd never killed anyone before either, and he had done it so easily, so quickly. Part of his brain knew that's what he trained for, but the rest seemed to be stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that it had happened. But that guy was still up there, not dusted away the way monsters were. He was up there in an unused third floor office, becoming cold and rigid and cut nearly in two, and Cloud was standing down here, warm and alive. He heard something hit the pavement a little ways from him. He turned and saw the source of the noise- bodies being dumped out the windows by Yu and somebody else. So his kill wasn't up there any more. It was down on street with the rest of them.

Cloud looked away, returning his attention to the General. Sephiroth had something small and mechanical in his hand, and was accosting the oldest prisoner, the hardest looking man. All three were forced into a kneeling position, wrists bound behind them. Sephiroth was a fright to behold, enormous, fierce, and dripping in blood. Soot may not have stuck to him but blood certainly did. The other two prisoners hadn't their elder's resolve, they looked clearly frightened.

"Where is he?" Sephiroth asked of the man he pegged for their leader, the softness to his voice more terrifying than a yell could have been. Captain Barstow kept his eyes fixed ahead, knowing better than to look at his inquisitor.

"I see you need some proof of my determination?" Sephiroth grabbed another prisoner, the one Cloud had brought down, by the back of the collar and laid him down on his stomach in front of Barstow. He pulled the man's head up by his hair so Barstow could see his face.

"Do you know where he is, the man who provided you with this?" Sephiroth demanded of the man on the ground. The man looked at the object waved before him, clearly recognizing it, but he shook his head, tearing at the hair in the General's grasp.

"No! I swear, I don't know! I don't know these things!"

"Pity," Sephiroth said, then without warning put his foot on the back of the man's shoulders, wrapped one steely fingered hand under his jaw and yanked. He yanked so hard and so fast that something happened that Cloud never thought possible, the man's head tore free of his body. Sephiroth had ripped it off with his bare hands. Cloud's heart, which he hadn't noticed had been racing already with the exchange, felt like it had stopped, glued to the inside of his ribcage for its trying to tear free of his chest. His stomach lurched up into the new vacancy, forcing bile into his throat. He stared, unable to take his eyes away from the blood spewing from the victim onto his comrade and over the pavement like someone had opened a faucet. Cloud wished suddenly his ears hadn't healed up, he would never be free of that unique ripping, tearing, crunching sound.

"Where is he?" Sephiroth repeated to the leader.

Barstow had recovered his face, replacing the horrified look with that same stony reserve. "I don't know," the man said evenly.

"Liar. Perhaps you were not sufficiently attached to that one," he said, hauling up the second prisoner. He was a young man no older than Cloud, small and fine featured, too. Pretty. Sephiroth saw the hard man's face twitch and was encouraged.

"This one, maybe?" Sephiroth ran a finger along the young man's jaw.

Now Barstow's eyes blazed in anger. "You're going to kill us both anyway, why should I tell you!"

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow, this was an admission of knowledge. He was getting closer. But he was running out of prisoners.

"No, he won't."

All three, captor, prisoner, and imminent victim turned their heads to see the new speaker. Cloud was shaking, barely able to raise his voice. This had to stop for him; he had to get Sephiroth to stop. But when he looked at the General his knees almost gave out. Cloud didn't even know this man, and the utter blank look might have convinced him that Sephiroth didn't even recognize him. Cloud stepped forward anyway. The Sephiroth he knew had to be in there somewhere.

"He'll spare you if I ask, one of you at least. Him." Cloud pointed at the younger who was still in Sephiroth's grip and looked into his terrified eyes.

"It's going to be OK," Cloud said, having no idea if it was true. He turned to the foreign Sephiroth again. "Seph, please."

Finally Sephiroth shut his eyes, and when he opened them again they looked angry. Really angry. Cloud's heart leapt; angry was far better than that nothingness

"I will do as my precious one asks," Sephiroth said slowly to the leader. "I will of course kill you, but I will spare your last man, if you tell me what I want to know."

Barstow looked at young Pato. The kid hadn't even wanted to do this mission, hated and distrusted the men he was about to die to protect. Well hell with them. If there was any path for Sephiroth not to not kill Pato it would have to be something like this, something unexpected, the sentiment of another who could somehow affect the devil of ShinRa himself. And this really was his last man; his entire team had been wiped out. Sweet Pato, idealistic Pato.

"It's not far," Barstow said. "Northwest corner of Seventh and Brine, it looks like an old warehouse. Cameras all over the outside. Of course, it seems the power is out." he laughed, a single mirthless exhale. In hindsight using a weapon that relied on mako power against the power company wasn't so bright. "It will be lightly guarded, most of us were out here tonight."

Sephiroth waited.

"They're both there." Barstow added.

"Both?"

Barstow frowned, "The Doc and the Sorcerer."

"You don't know their names?" Sephiroth actually looked amused. Barstow glowered at him. Then Sephiroth raised one long arm and Cloud looked away, not wanting one more stinging image burned into his brain, although he couldn't do anything about his open ears. But what he heard didn't sound like death, in fact Seph had barely hit him. The man lay on his side, knees still bent and arms still bound behind him, he was unconscious, but he wasn't anything like dead. Cloud looked up at the General, his mouth slightly open.

"The cleanup team will be here shortly," Sephiroth said to the young prisoner, "Take your comrade and move him out of here, stay off the main roads. There's an emergency medical team about two miles to the north, you may want to head there. Zachary!" Sephiroth strode away from them.

Zack trotted past Cloud, giving him a look that Cloud thought might have been approval. Then it dawned on Cloud that the General meant to free the prisoners. He pulled out his knife and cut the bonds on the young Pato, who was looking at him like Cloud was his savior. Then Cloud knelt down to free the man on the ground.

"Thank-you," Pato said, watching the blond Soldier who merely nodded a reply. The Soldier was dirty, bloody, tired and young, like himself. He owed his life to this Soldier's decent and brave act. Pato religiously believed that decency should be fostered wherever possible, despite the fact that he had thrown in with this wholly indecent endeavor. The cause had been good, but this...

"We were supposed to capture a few of you," Pato said, causing the blond head to turn sharply towards him. "For tests."

The hair on Cloud's neck stood on end, responding to his understanding of "tests" as he'd learned from ShinRa. The labs, Seph...

"I'm sorry," Pato added, feeling the full weight of his shame when he saw what looked like fear in the face of his benefactor. "Are you really going after the Doc and the Sorcerer?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Cloud said, now pulling the leader to his feet. He was partly awake now but disoriented.

"They're dangerous," Pato said, "especially the Sorcerer. He's a liar, and I think he might be..."

Pato paused, uncomfortable, using the moment to get Barstow's arm slung around his shoulder.

"the undead."

Cloud didn't answer, having no idea how to interpret that.

"They say he can fly. Be careful." Pato started dragging his burden away.

"Thanks," Cloud said.

Cloud picked his way over rubble from the damaged street to where Sephiroth stood with Zack. Sephiroth turned towards him and he stood with head lowered.

"I am unhappy with your interference," Sephiroth said. "Even if the result was a good one." Zack kicked him lightly in the back of his calf before giving them some space.

"Yes sir," Cloud said.

Sephiroth touched Cloud's chin gently.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Sephiroth said, "but sometimes these things have to be done."

"Are you sure? Because I think a piece of my soul might be permanently bruised."

Sephiroth sighed and moved his hand along Cloud's cheek, feeling the dried blood and soot rough under his hand.

"I need you to do something for me," Cloud said. "The next time you feel it's necessary to rip a guy's head off with your bare hands I need you to at least try to think of some other way."

Sephiroth considered Cloud before answering. "I will try," he said.

Cloud almost smiled. "Maybe it hurts your soul as well to be doing that kind of thing."

"I didn't think I had one."

Cloud gave him a bemused look and Sephiroth thought the young man probably believed he was joking. But maybe he did have a soul. Maybe Cloud was excavating it somehow. He laid a gentle kiss into Cloud's hair and separated from him in time to see the rope drops from the hatch in the upper plate a hundred meters from their positions. The watch whistled an alert and the men around him readied weapons.

"At ease," he called. "That's our backup."

The group relaxed and watched a dozen black clad forms, heavy with gear and boots and various shaped blades repel down the ropes. They landed silently and after checking their surroundings headed towards the General's squad. The ropes behind them retracted up and disappeared, and then a metallic clang resealed the hatch.

"Better late than never, major," Sephiroth said as Niven came up and saluted.

Niven looked around at the carnage surrounding them. This had been a serious and organized attack. "Well next time you get in a fight please try to stay closer to HQ. Sir."

Sephiroth smiled thinly, and Niven did the same. Cloud noticed both squads were watching them and some of the new Third Classes looked startled. It had taken Cloud himself awhile to understand this dry undertone between the two men. Niven frequently said things that sounded reproachful, but it was the way he expressed his concern and affection for his commander. And Sephiroth, completely confident of having Niven's respect and fealty, never took offense.

"I assume we have you to thank for cutting the power?" Sephiroth asked, "We were struggling badly with that machine they had."

"In a way." Niven glanced at Cloud. "Cloud contacted me to do so."

Sephiroth spun and looked at Cloud, surprise and delight plain on his face. "You called him? Through that din?" He turned back to Niven. "How could you hear him?"

"He," Niven paused, hating that he was going to have to say this, "texted me."

Several of the younger Soldiers stifled laughs and one hidden in the back hooted. Niven was perpetually riding their asses, Cloud's in particular, for texting instead of paying attention to particularly boring and useless stuff. Soldier PHS's had only got text capability a year or two ago, and the older guys like Niven hadn't warmed up to it much.

"Well," said Sephiroth, "maybe we need to add texting to our arsenal of standard Soldier weapons."

Cloud smiled. Fine with him, and he expected Sephiroth wouldn't mind; it was he who Cloud was usually texting. He'd never done it before Cloud taught him, and he wasn't as fast as Cloud but the General could text while simultaneously taking notes in a meeting or actually having a complicated conversation. It was a little freaky.

"We're heading for the northwest corner of Seventh and Brine, to attack some sort of base for these guys in an old warehouse. They had this with them."

Sephiroth held up the chunk of machinery that he had earlier waved at his prisoners. This time Cloud could see the ShinRa logo on it.

Niven sucked in his breath. "Hollander," he said flatly. "Do you think... he's there as well?"

"I believe so. One of the attackers said something about a 'Sorcerer' also being at our target location."

"Oh," said Cloud, suddenly remembering. "The young guy, he said something else about the Sorcerer, that he was a liar and that he might be able to fly. And that he was the undead."

Sephiroth frowned at the last part, but the first fit.

"And he said their mission was to capture a few of us. For tests." Cloud looked between his superiors, feeling a little out of place. He got the distinct feeling that they knew more than he did. As usual.

"That can't be good," Niven said. Both he and Sephiroth turned their attention to Zack.

"Are you up for this?" Sephiroth asked.

Zack smile was half bitter, but a wild eagerness had lit deep in his eyes. "You bet," he said, "Gotta finish what I started."

The sound of a vehicle up the road alerted them to the arrival of the cleanup crew.

"Turks are here," Zack said.

ccccccccccccc

On the move to the warehouse target Zack sidled over to Cloud and put an arm around him. "How ya doin'?"

"I'm OK." Cloud looked at the older, more seasoned First Class. Zack was back to his casual, happy, eager self. Cloud knew how much Zack loved to fight, but tonight seemed so... horrifying. They stepped in tandem over a partial torso.

"Why did these guys attack us?" Cloud asked.

These guys? Who knows. The ones who get sliced up are almost always fodder for somebody else's plan. Maybe they needed the money or thought they were following some ideal, maybe thinking they're saving the planet when all they were really doing was keeping us from putting out buildings on fire. While ignorantly supporting for somebody's greed for power."

"Like us," Cloud said.

"Yeah, like us for ShinRa. But we've got something they don't."

"What?" Cloud asked.

"Each other. Our loyalty to one another that gives us at least some power in our own right. And the unstoppable force at our head. He'd find some underhanded way to flatten ShinRa if they misused us too badly."

"Poor bastards," Zack said, stepping over another body.

Poor bastards indeed, Cloud thought looking down to see a man's face, eyes open, his mouth sliced from lip to ear, extending the red line like a wide grin. An uncontrolled shaking ran through Cloud.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to fight again," Cloud said.

"You can do it,"

"How? How do you manage?"

Zack squeezed Cloud so that for a few paces he limped along while his outside foot barely reached the ground.

"People think I'm naturally happy, like I have some sort of gift or something. Maybe it's partly my nature, but I work at it too. When things are real shitty like this I look around for something to smile about, then I concentrate on that and let it fill up my whole brain. It gets easier the more you practice."

Zack grinned at Cloud, his gorgeous smile shining through the grime on his face.

"So what are you smiling about now?" Cloud asked.

"You, what a fine Soldier you're turning into."

"I'm not so sure," Cloud moped.

"I am." Zack kissed Cloud on the temple, and then returned to his position by Sephiroth.

Cloud watched him go, his temple still tingling from the kiss. Zack had been a little careful with his affections towards him, backing off with anything physical when he and Sephiroth had started seeing each other, but lately he had returned to his regular habits. Presumably because he was sure Sephiroth was settled enough not to feel threatened by that. Not that he should be, Zack was as straight as they came. He couldn't even identify a good looking man from an average one. Cloud was sure Zack didn't even know how exquisitely handsome he himself was. He knew he did well with women, but he seemed to attribute that to something about his persona. Well he was pretty damn irresistible, Cloud thought as he watched Zack take an excited hop next to Sephiroth. Cloud smiled.

ccccccccccccc

The warehouse loomed large and dark on the corner, silent and ominous. A block away from it both squads hunkered, watching. They had stopped in what they hoped was out of camera range in case the cameras had their own power supply. Sephiroth studied the warehouse. They were going in, but the Soldier traitor they hunted would be familiar with the standard siege tactics. The General squinted at the plate above them. If only there was hatch above the damn warehouse. It was so tall, four stories at least, that they could jump from the plate onto its roof. He looked at the plate some more. It was full of ribs and cross braces. He'd bet money that those cameras, or lookouts for that matter, weren't looking upwards. And there was a hatch a block behind them.

"Zack, have you ever climbed around on the bottom of the plate?"

"Uh, once."

Sephiroth didn't ask for the circumstances, and Zack had no desire to volunteer that information.

"Difficult?"

"Not to bad, actually, for Soldier," he was catching on to what Sephiroth was thinking. "Third Class could do it no problem."

"Niven, call those rope handlers of yours up there and get them to drop us lines down," Sephiroth looked behind him and squinted, "Hatch 27"

"21," Zack corrected.

"Looks like 27" Niven said.

"No, 21. Trust me, I spend a lot of time down here," Zack said. It wasn't too far from Aerith's church. He was feeling a little embarrassed in fact that enemy combatants had moved into "his" territory.

Niven made the call and the whole group backtracked to Hatch 21. With only a light scraping noise from above the hatch was moved and twelve ropes dropped down, jumping and uncoiling as they went. The men pulled their rope ascenders off their belts, small palm sized metal objects that sped up climbing by holding fast when under load and sliding upward easily when not. Zack led the first group up to the plate, where they clung to the underside like spiders.

Cloud went up with Sephiroth's group and grabbed onto a bar at the top. Then he found a second handhold, and somewhere to put his feet. His group was moving rapidly, and he certainly didn't want to be sucking the hind tit. He moved handholds one after the other, his toes gripping a lip formed by some sort of I-beam going his direction. But soon that petered out, and he had to swing his legs to the other side of himself. His next handhold was not a grip at all; it was more of a rounded knob. Cloud thanked the Planet that it was rough from rust, but even so it was damn difficult to hold onto. Was it Zack who had said this was easy? That figured. The next grip he spotted was just a small lip, pretty far away. This was one activity where a few more inches of length on his limbs would have served him well. He swung his weight a little to span the distance, had the handhold, but then his fingers suddenly slipped away. He coiled back and managed to maintain his position, but that close call had caused him to sweat, and he started to slip on the grip he had. Cloud looked around, that lip was the _only_ reachable handhold from where he was. He lunged again and this time came up even shorter, but a strong fingers circled his wrist and caught him.

"Gaia, Cloud, are you making this hard on purpose?" Sephiroth looked at him as if he was really wondering.

Cloud looked at the section Sephiroth had chosen. Oh yeah, that was way easier. That section was littered with pipes. Cloud had gotten into a section that was kind of smooth. Cloud grunted and bug-climbed over a ridge to get where Sephiroth was. Maybe he'd follow the General's route. That was easy enough to do, and entertaining. Sephiroth's hair hung down like a big silver flag, swinging in parallel with his black leather trench.

Before long they stopped, and waited. Cloud realized they were over the warehouse roof, near a raised section that looked like roof access for the building. The other half of them clung over a similar looking protrusion on the other side of the building. Sephiroth made sure they were all in position, then gave the signal. All of them dropped simultaneously, broke in the entrances, and poured down the stairwells. At every floor two men broke off from the group on orders to seek and destroy. Cloud and his partner advanced into a second floor hallway, signaling and leapfrogging forward as the other provided backup. There was a bathroom, empty, and one other door. They went through that door and Cloud's heart gave a thump – labs, benches, glassware, healing tubes. And a dark haired man with a beard and a lab coat. Cloud wondered if this could be the Doc. He was frantically grabbing up papers and a packing a foam lined case with glass jars, looking like he was trying to evacuate. He looked unarmed but he reminded Cloud of Hojo and so Cloud's his defenses stayed properly up. Both he and Joey charged. The man ran to the far side of the lab and through another door. Cloud and Joey were stopped from following as a ten foot high mechanical... something appeared in their path. It was four legged but with legs like a spider. A spider with arms and pincers. There was no time to think about the thing, it was definitely hostile and they turned their attention and blades to it.

The scientist, having escaped through the far door, ran across a catwalk that lined the large open center of the warehouse, then down stairs made of metal grating. Twenty seconds later Cloud and Joey were racing after him, and sure they would catch him out on the large floor. But something red flashed before them and Cloud was barely able to block what he almost didn't see. Whatever it was knocked him about twenty feet backwards onto his butt. Joey joined him on the floor a moment later. They both jumped up, blades in front of themselves to assess the new arrival. He was a sight to be sure, the only thing Cloud could think was Sephiroth in red. He looked at them, an amused expression on his face, a fireball poised in left right hand.

"Shield!" Cloud called, accessing the materia Sephiroth had given him. It was none too early, the fireball flew at them, and to Cloud's amazement came partly through the shield. He and Joey backpedaled with everything they had.

"Shit!" Joey said, "What is he?"

"Sorcerer," Cloud panted, "Soldier." He had seen the guy's eyes. And he had a kisori on, worn with straps crossed, the way Sephiroth did. The red devil leapt into the air towards them, First Class, Cloud realized, only First Class had a jump like that. He readied himself, hoping the two of them together would be enough to deflect him.

But they never got the chance, the Sorcerer was intercepted mid air and had to turn his sword to the attacker. Cloud watched as Sephiroth's momentum carried them to the far side of the room, both men swinging furiously even before they hit the floor. Cloud desperately wanted to get in and help, but they were too fast for him. He could barely follow the action let alone time some of his own strokes into it. He saw Zack jump down to the floor from the catwalk as the team from the other side started coming in. But Zack didn't join the pair either, he immediately turned to fight another one of those mechanical spider things coming up behind the General. Suddenly Cloud saw the mechanical spiders appearing all over the warehouse floor, they were coming out of the crates stacked there. More Soldiers poured in from both sides, and Cloud could see the labcoat guy sneaking away, unnoticed.

"C'mon," he motioned to Joey, and they took off after him. Two of the robotic defenders stepped together, obscuring their path.

"This is getting old, already," Joey said as they went to work on them. They had their prey trapped and were making progress against the robots, but that flash of red went overhead. The Sorcerer grabbed the lab coat guy and carried him with a powerful jump up to the catwalk. Cloud gave several more slices to finish his mechanical opponent, absently appreciating his new blade. Joey had broken his and was now beating the beast with one of it's own implements. Cloud craned his neck around to see Sephiroth get up from a long roll across the floor. Who rolled Sephiroth? He hadn't thought that was possible, even for Zack, except... there were three once. Cloud remembered the young prisoner's comment that the Sorcerer was the undead. He prayed silently this wasn't the Soldier Angeal, up from the dead. For Zack's sake let it be the other one.

The sorcerer smiled again and launched another fireball that caused everyone on the floor to duck and cover. But the fireball wasn't aimed their way; it flew upward and blew a hole in the ceiling that rained charred metal on their heads.

"How you have wasted the gift of the Goddess," the red Soldier said, apparently to Sephiroth as an enormous black wing sprouted from behind the red coat. With a jump start he launched the Doc and himself up towards the hole. Sephiroth jumped straight up to follow, almost catching their toes at his apex. But gravity insisted he descend, and the other two continued to rise with the flap of that giant wing.

"Coward!" Sephiroth yelled. He grabbed a chunk of robot and hurled it at the pair. The red Soldier struck it away easily with his decorated blade. "Get back down here and fight! Genesis!"

And then with a mad laugh they slipped through the hole in the roof and were gone. The spider robots were still. The room was silent. Two dozen Soldiers looked at their commander, waiting. Zack walked over and stood by Sephiroth and joined him in looking up at the hole in the ceiling.

"He looks good," Zack said. Sephiroth glared at him with a look that would have wilted a more sensitive man.

cccccccccccccccc

"Am I ever glad to be home," Joey said.

"No kidding, even HQ looks good," Cloud agreed. And that was saying something- HQ was butt-ugly. They headed towards the locker rooms.

"Oh no you don't," Zack grabbed them both by the back of their collars. "We got one more thing to do."

Both young men groaned as Zack steered them into the center courtyard. It was full of Soldiers. All the Midgar teams were there, the mood lively at having their long night over. Everyone was dirty, but Cloud's squad was by far the bloodiest. And the most exhausted. They were warmly greeted by their fellows who embraced them and asked questions and peered at them at all angles, looking for injuries, hoping for stories. Cloud saw the General stride in and stand in front of the flogging rail. He held Masamune up, tip skyward, arm extended. All around Cloud Soldiers followed suit, and Cloud imitated them. They were doing something, but nobody had informed him. He sneaked a glance at Joey who shrugged his shoulders, his broken sword out. Major Niven came up beside them and swapped Joey's sword with an unbroken one, his face making it clear Joey had made some idiotic faux pas. Joey shook his head, confused. Like it was his fault they got attacked by metal monsters and he broke his sword. When everyone was ready Sephiroth turned to the east and the group fell silent. Then, cued by some signal Cloud didn't catch, they began to sing as the sun broke the horizon. Cloud tried to follow, the tune was a little familiar, it was old, a feudal song, from the old Soldier days. Cloud listened to the words, the low smooth sound of a hundred male voices carrying the mournful melody.

_We raise our swords to face the dawn  
To greet another year  
We raise the swords that keep us strong  
To those we once held dear_

_ For Soldiers lost and Soldiers gone  
For friends both far and near  
We raise the swords that keep us strong  
To those we once held dear_

Cloud looked around carefully, the formation wasn't rigid, it seemed the only requirement was to keep the sword up and more or less face East. Guys were moving around some, looking at one another, some tearily wrapping their free arms around each other. Cloud gave Joey's arm a squeeze and started to move up. There was someplace he needed to be.

_Once proud and noble dreams we shared  
Once you fought by my side  
But now you've gone where spirits fare  
And I keep those dreams alive_

_ For Soldiers lost and Soldiers gone  
For friends both far and near  
We raise the swords that keep us strong  
To those we once held dear_

At the front of their formation Sephiroth stood with Zack close at his side. Zack had stopped singing momentarily, not because of his famously poor singing ability, but because he had closed his eyes and laid his forehead against Sephiroth's shoulder. Sephiroth put his hand on Zack's face, and Cloud paused, feeling like he was intruding. They had told him on the way back about the traitor Soldier Genesis, once Sephiorth's friend and who apparently had not died despite Zack having made a good effort to kill him. Zack had even talked a little bit about Angeal. The two older men had shared so much together, so many painful things. But as he heard the voices welling up behind him he realized their history was his as well, as was the history of every Soldier than had gone before him.

_We've kept our hearts  
Both proud and true  
Through battles lost and won  
We hold our hearts aloft to you  
At this rising of the sun_

_ For Soldiers lost and Soldiers gone  
For friends both far and near  
We raise the swords that keep us strong  
To those we once held dear_

Cloud stepped up beside Sephiroth and slipped his arm around the General's waist and got an arm around his shoulder in return, both their swords still out. It was part of the beauty of being a left-handed right-handed couple, they could stand side by side and both have their sword arm on the outside. The group was so quiet that Cloud could hear their collective breathing. Then Sephiroth turned slowly around and faced the waiting group as Cloud and Zack slipped a little away from him. The General paused before addressing the assembly, scanning each man's face as if he meant to burn every one deep into his memory.

"On this break of the New Year," he started, "We salute those we loved, the fallen, the ones who shared our lives and saved our lives. The ones who taught us how to be Soldier. The ones who drove us crazy."

A subdued ripple of laughter went through the group.

"But this salute is for you, the living before me, the vibrant lifeblood of Soldier today, and the promise for our future." The General lifted his sword to a horizontal position, the curve of the blade making a wide, graceful arc over his head.

"TROS!" he called.

"TROS!" the group repeated. Cloud imitated his fellows while having no idea what that word meant.

Then there was a general outburst of joy and goodwill as swords were put away and Soldiers hugged one another with cries of New Year well-wishing. Cloud was grabbed several times from behind and had to hug back. It took him two minutes to get back to Sephiroth. Finally he did and they looked one another for long moments, both filthy, tired, and kind of rank smelling.

"Happy New Year, Soldier," Sephiroth said to Cloud, and kissed him.

**A/N: the word 'tros' I took from 'troskap', which is a nordic word for loyalty or fidelity. FFVII is full of nordic references.**

**I combined the feel of Halloween and New Years here. In Detroit, where I used to live, they used to set the town on fire around Halloween. Cops hated it.**_  
_


	7. Snapshot 3 Grooming

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Time for a couple fluffy snapshots**

Sephiroth wandered out of the shower, nude, damp, half covered in an oversized bath sheet while he used the other half to rub water out of his hair. Then he gave in and resorted to using the entire thing for his hair. He nearly collided with Cloud in the bedroom, who was holding one of his boot knives rather menacingly. Sephiroth took a step back.

"What are you doing, Cloud?" he asked carefully, wondering if Cloud had lapsed into a state of mako psychosis. He'd never heard of it on an organic, but...

"That's it," Cloud said, his tone hard and serious. "I saw a piece of it touch the floor. We are cutting it." Cloud jabbed the point of the knife towards Sephiroth's hair. Sephiroth relaxed, but only a little.

"It's longer when it's wet. The weight of the water pulls is down," he said, trying to sound calmer than he felt.

"No, Seph. No more excuses. No more 'I can't go to the barber because the cuttings wind up on e-sell', no more 'I hate the blunt cut that scissors make'. I have sharpened this knife until it cuts like a razor; I'm doing this."

Sephiroth looked at Cloud, wondering if he could bully him out of it. Then he sighed. He actually did need his hair cut. Another week and he'd be stepping on it.

"OK," he agreed, "But not on the carpet."

They moved to the tiled kitchen where Sephiroth stood naked in the bright light, hair damp and hanging down behind him like a silver waterfall. Cloud held the knife in his right hand and took up a lock of hair in his left. Now that he was actually doing the deed he suddenly felt nervous.

"You... want it at your waist? You've complained about sitting on it."

"I'd like to stop sitting on it. But leave it as long as possible. I miss it when it's not around me."

Cloud knew what he meant. He also loved the feel of Sephiroth's hair, sliding against his bare skin in bed, under his cheek as they walked with Cloud's head on his shoulder, sometimes protecting Cloud from prying eyes in public. But there would be plenty of it left to do all of that if it were cut to his waist. He put tension on the targeted lock of hair then sliced with the knife. It went through easily of course; Cloud had tested it on his own hair, which had done little to help his already disorganized coif. He worked across, making long strokes with the blade to leave a tapered edge, not ragged but... natural looking. It took all of five minutes. All that anxiety over five minutes.

"All done." Cloud said.

Sephiroth moved his head around. "I think my head is lighter," he said.

He grabbed up a great chunk of it and examined the ends. Tapered, like he liked it. Cloud also ran his hands over the ends, then continued down to caress Sephiroth's smooth, naked backside. For a moment both forgot entirely about the hair. Sephiroth smiled and kissed Cloud, then went back into the bedroom to dress for the day. Cloud got a broom to sweep the bright silver strands from the floor, then he bent down and picked up a handful. It was beautiful the way it caught the light. He wouldn't be selling it on e-sell, but he thought maybe he would keep some of it for himself.


	8. Snapshot 4 Play

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

"Hey!" Cloud called from the small laundry room off the kitchen when he heard Sephiroth come in. He smiled, thinking it was nice to both be home early. He heard Sephiroth remove his boots and his coat, but he didn't return the greeting.

Cloud picked up the laundry basket full of clean clothes and peered curiously at his roommate as he headed to the bedroom, and Sephiroth peered back. Cloud understood the meaning of that look almost too late. He dropped the basket, clean socks, T-shirts, and boxer shorts flying into the air as he dove sideways. Sephiroth just missed him as he landed on the couch, but before Cloud could regain his feet the larger man was on top of him. Cloud squirmed, slid out from under him, but then was caught in that iron grip and hoisted off the ground.

"Arnngh! No... picking... me... up!" Cloud writhed and kicked to no avail, he was still being moved towards the hallway. But if Sephiroth insisted that his feet be off the ground there was something else he could do with them. It was unfortunate that didn't have his heavy, black soled boots on, but he was barefoot and even padding around the apartment his feet were not completely clean. He split them apart and stuck one on each pristine eggshell-white wall of the hallway, effectively stopping their progress, and more importantly, causing Sephiroth to drop him in horror.

"Ha!" Cloud taunted, "Dirtphobe!"

Cloud popped up and eluded the grasp again as he ran into the bedroom. It didn't matter that this was where Sephiroth was taking him in the first place, that wasn't the point. He leapt up on the enormous bed, made a U-turn as Sephiroth gave chase, and tumbled off the edge for having his shirt grabbed from behind. The garment tore free with a satisfying raspberry rip and Cloud half ran, half crawled back into the hallway. There his progress was stopped as Sephiroth landed over him, arms and legs holding him like a cage.

"Fine," Sephiroth whispered, his lips now unable to stay off of Cloud's neck and ear. "I'll take you in the hallway."

Cloud turned underneath him and put both hands around Sephrioth's neck so he could pull them together in a kiss. Then he wrapped both legs around his waist and Sephiroth scooped him off the floor, and without protest this time carried him back to the bedroom.

He dropped Cloud onto the bed, thinking the hallway would be fun, but the lube was in the bedroom. They tore frantically at each other's clothing, Soldier strength and speed tearing a piece here and there. Hands wrapped around tense muscles, lips found smooth skin to press, so hard and impassioned that teeth bruised the delicate flesh from behind. Both kicked their feet to rid themselves of pants until finally hot bare skin pressed together. Cloud was panting and already kicking his knees up.

"Now," he gasped, "Fast!"

Sephiroth, almost out of his mind at the sound of that desperate plea, barely managed to grab and apply the lube before plunging himself into Cloud. Cloud cried out suddenly in pain, and his face drained of some of its heated color.

"Cloud!" Sephiroth froze. He had neglected to stretch and relax Cloud. He had been unsure how much of that pre-entry work Cloud actually needed, certainly less than he did in the beginning, but with that encouraging request Sephiroth thought Cloud was indicating he didn't need it at all. But of course Cloud wouldn't know; Sephiroth had always taken care of that for him.

"Cloud baby, I'm sorry. We can stop."

"You'd better not," Cloud said, clutching Sephiroth's hair ferociously. Then more calmly, "I'm fine. I'm fine, just a little... startled."

Sephiroth pulled part way out, his erection already flagging with that single cry of Cloud's. He dipped his head slowly so that he might see. There was no blood, but it must have hurt. That hadn't been a yelp of "startled".

"Seph..."

A hand was on his cheek, urging him to look at Cloud's face, which had regained its excited flush. Cloud was panting again and had slid his other hand between them to grab himself and begin his fast rhythm stroke.

"Seph!"

Realizing he was in danger of being left behind Sephiroth began a cautious thrusting, then more aggressive as Cloud seemed to be in fact more than fine.

"Argh, SEPH! SEPH!" Cloud bucked underneath him, his hips lifting and the back of his head digging deep into the pillow. Sephiroth was vaguely aware that Cloud was actually yanking on his hair as he himself climaxed with a hoarse yell. Cloud went limp into the mattress and Sephiroth collapsed on top of him, sliding himself out and guiding Cloud's legs back down. He noticed about a dozen long, silver strands still clutched in Cloud's fist.

"I love it when you come home early," Cloud said, eyes half lidded.

Sephiroth laughed a little and rolled them over so Cloud could be on top. He smiled and kissed one sleepy eye. Next time he would be more cautious and slow down a bit, no matter what Cloud begged for. And plan ahead. Maybe stash some lube in the hallway.

ccccccccc

Tseng cautiously removed one earplug and listened. No new noises, no screaming, no caterwauling. He took out the other and rubbed both his ears. It was always the worst when they started with that chasing around, thumping and throwing each other and what else he couldn't imagine. Thank Gaia the bedroom was actually on the far end of the unit and not right on the other side of the wall from him. Otherwise he'd have to move.


	9. A Stolen Kiss

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

"Hey," Sephiroth looked up and smiled as Cloud came in. It had been a late night for Cloud, and Sephiroth was about to put leftovers in the fridge but moved them to the microwave instead.

Cloud didn't respond to the greeting, nor did he progress into the apartment. He didn't even take his boots off; he just stood on the small tile patch that served as a landing for the front door. A small knot of anxiety lit inside of Sephiroth. As a Third Class Cloud had a lot of challenging days, and he had to constantly restrain himself in his desire to fix everything for him.

"What's wrong?" Sephiroth asked, trying to sound casual.

"I love you, Seph."

Sephiroth, confused, came around the breakfast bar to get a better look at Cloud.

"Cloud?" He reached for Cloud and the young man coiled away, eyes down and looking heartbroken.

"Cloud, what happened?" Sephiroth said, his anxiety increasing.

Cloud swallowed. "I kissed another man tonight."

Sephiroth was at a momentary loss. This didn't sound like his Cloud. He beat back a jealous anger that he knew would be counterproductive at the moment, although the mental image of Cloud with his lips on another man threatened to make his head explode.

"You love me," Sephiroth stated even though Cloud had just said so, because he needed a moment to try and sort this out.

"Yes," Cloud answered, head still down.

"Are you... satisfied with me?"

Cloud's eyes finally shot up and met his. "Gaia, Seph, yes!" Cloud sniffed a little, his eyes watering.

"Are you bored?" Sephiroth asked, unable to think of how else to proceed.

"No. No! I don't know how... I didn't know he was going to..." Cloud's mouth kept moving but sound had quit coming out. He looked around the living room as if the words he was seeking might be hiding behind the couch, or maybe under the coffee table.

Sephiroth came forward and put his hands on the side of Cloud's face to stop him from avoiding eye contact.

"You mean _he_ kissed _you,_" he said.

Cloud looked confused. Sephiroth pulled him over to the couch, boots and all, and bodily manipulated him until they were both seated. Cloud was shaking his head.

"I kissed back."

Sephiroth barely managed not to chuckle at Cloud. This wasn't such a big deal. He kissed Cloud, and immediately felt the warm lips moving with him, parting in acceptance.

"You kissed me back," Sephiroth said.

"Well... yeah." Cloud frowned, now in frustration. It wasn't that he wanted Sephiroth to yell at him, he just felt like he should be getting yelled at. Not kissed.

"Cloud you've always kissed me back, no matter how surprised or confused or even hurt you were. I think it's your nature to kiss back."

Cloud let his head sink onto Sephiroth's shoulder. Maybe that was right, maybe this wasn't really his fault. He certainly had gotten out of practice ducking amorous advances since it had become known he was involved with Sephiroth. But still...

"I kind of enjoyed it," Cloud said in one last effort to incriminate himself.

"Kisses are nice. They should be enjoyed. I assume as soon as you told this guy that you're with me that he was properly abashed?"

"I don't think he cared," Cloud said.

Now Sephiroth did scowl, and let some of that anger bubble up. He supposed that some of the men might not know Cloud was his, or maybe didn't recognize Cloud yet, but that one wouldn't care? Unless...

"This wasn't a Soldier?" Sephiroth asked.

"No," Cloud shook his head. "He's a Turk."

Every piece of Sephiroth stiffened. "Which Turk?"

"His name is Reno. He has red hair? Our patrol actually walked into one of their stake-outs. I might have been shot if he hadn't taken out the guy who was gunning for me. While I was thanking him... he kissed me." Cloud wondered if he should explain more than that, Reno had ridden with them in the transport back to base and they had talked. Cloud had liked the young Turk, or at least enjoyed his company, and that in part was contributing to his feeling of guilt. He wondered if Sephiroth was guessing this, because he had gotten a very serious look on his face. But apparently it was something else.

"Cloud, this may be my fault. I have a bad history with this particular Turk. It may be he just finds you cute," he caught the tick in Cloud's face that came with that word, "Sorry, actually I'm sure he does find you attractive, but it may be this is some sort of effort to get at me. Maybe just to annoy me, but he may try to hurt you."

Cloud frowned. "I don't think he knew I was with you, I mean before I told him. It seemed like he didn't know."

"He certainly did know; Turks know almost everything that goes on in this company. And they spin lies like they breathe the air. Don't trust any of them, and stay away from this one in particular. That's an actual order. If your officers try to assign you on mission with him you tell them that you are under orders from me not to work with him. You shirk duty if you have to, am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," Cloud said, unhappy. He had just got himself back on track and was doing so well now, the last thing he wanted to do was argue with his superiors or shirk duty. Or rather, the second to last thing he wanted to do. No Soldier wanted to disobey a direct order from the General.

"And don't you be kissing him again."

"Yes, sir," Cloud repeated without worry. There was no chance he was going to let that happen again, especially if he was avoiding Reno.

"You want to get out of those clothes? Shower?"

Cloud nodded, for the fifth time rubbing the back of one his knuckles against his mouth. Sephiroth gently pulled Cloud's hand away.

"I want you to quit thinking about kisses stolen by Turks, and replace them all with mine." With that Sephiroth kissed him, feeling again the gratification of Cloud's immediate opening to him, of Cloud's tongue so willing to meet his own. Without breaking the kiss he pulled them both to their feet and down the hallway and into his master bath. He kept the kiss, sucking on Cloud's lower lip, sliding his tongue into Cloud's mouth, taking Cloud's into his own as he undid and dropped Cloud's fatigues, not breaking the kiss until he had to pull Cloud's shirt over his head.

"Oh, my boots," Cloud said, and bent down to untie them. He giggled a little, thinking of his boots being on an adventure. They had never made it as far into the apartment as the bathroom before.

Sephiroth leaned over to run the water for the shower and smiled at Cloud's improved attitude. He thought about how the young Soldier shouldn't have to be dealing with shit like this in his first year, a Turk for Gaia's sake. He'd have to take care of it, but tomorrow. Right now he wanted to take care of Cloud.

While the water came to temperature Sephiroth removed his shirt, catching Cloud's attention as he pulled it up and over his shoulders. Cloud never got tired of that view. Soldier was full of young, fit, well muscled men, but none of them had a torso like the General. The man was ridiculously triangular owing to a spectacular combination of broad shoulders and narrow waist. Cloud stepped forward and put his hands on that hard, narrow waist, molding them briefly over the firm obliques before pulling the tie on Sephiroth's waistband. The sweats silently dropped to the floor and Sephiroth stepped out of them and into the shower with Cloud.

If Cloud had any residual anxiety over the events earlier it was driven away by the thousands of warm, tiny, water streams covering his skin from the unusual shower. All six shower heads were on, the ones at chest/back level pulsating gently, the overheads raining down, the one at hip level a steady, gentle spray. Cloud turned around several times to make sure his whole body got the water treatment, feeling Sephiroth's hands caressing him as he moved. Sephiroth always put Cloud closer to the shower heads, to make sure he got warmed up from the water, to let him relax, to watch the water run over his body.

"C'mon, get in the water, don't you get cold out there?" Cloud said, pulling Sephiroth close to him to share the streaming flow.

Sephiroth let himself be drawn tight to Cloud's warm and wet skin, feeling himself lengthen along the press of Cloud's body. Cloud smiled at him, knowingly, and grabbed the shampoo. They washed each other's hair, slowly, sensually, Sephiroth carelessly rubbing Cloud's head in every direction, Cloud more carefully sliding his fingers under Sephiroth's heavy locks and then moving them along the scalp. Then Cloud worked downwards, careful to minimize tangling. Sephiroth sighed; it was positively heavenly having Cloud do this. He turned around so Cloud could work on it from behind, but the young man didn't stop there. Once he got a liberal amount of conditioner in he ran his hands around to Sephiroth's front, where he could stroke slippery palms up and down the hard ridges of Sephiroth's chest and abdomen. He ran one hand up the front of the long thighs and lifted heavy genitals; wrapping his fingers around the shaft and feeling it rise and harden under his touch. The body showerheads were now aimed at his back and Cloud moved slightly to let the lowest jet caress his cheeks, warm, gentle. He put his face onto the thick hair covering Sephiorth's back and alternatively moved his hips forward and back between pressing his erection against his lover and increasing the pressure of the water spray onto the sensitive skin surrounding his anus. He began to pant, wanting more of both.

"Turn around," Sephiroth said and spun Cloud so those water jets now hit his front side and water from above ran down his face. He put both hands to the tiled wall in front of him and pushed backwards into Sephiroth, forcing him to back up in order to make room to work.

"Easy, Cloud," Sephiroth laughed a little, taking his conditioner and applying a liberal amount to himself and Cloud. Cloud pushed back again.

"So eager tonight," Sephiroth purred in Cloud's ear. Cloud whimpered and tried to push backwards again. This time Sephiroth steadied him with a hand on the small of his back and kept him still while he slid one, than another finger inside him to make sure Cloud was open and not just eager. Cloud sighed, finally getting what he needed. Soon Sephiroth removed his fingers and replaced them with a larger substitute. Now it was his turn to sigh as he pushed in and pulled away from Cloud's body. He used the conditioner again and gripped Cloud's erection firmly with the same hand he had just used to massage his backside, and the other he ran over Cloud's face, over his high cheekbones, that small bump on the bridge of his nose, over his delicate mouth, Cloud's mouth that had been touched by another, invaded by mal intent. He let his thumb, mixing with shower water, slide into Cloud's mouth where Cloud bit down on it lightly, only to let go as he cried out his climax. Sephiroth finished his thrusting as well, bringing his head right alongside of Cloud's where the water poured over them equally. He wrapped both hands around Cloud's torso, holding him tight to his chest under the warm downpour.

"Cloud," he whispered, "my beautiful Cloud."

As soon as Cloud was released he rotated to face Sephiroth, smiling dreamily. He was sleepy as usual, and he still had to finish his actual shower. He reached his hands up over his head, stretching his whole body up for display in the running water, and let Sephiroth do the rest for him.

cccccccccccc

The next morning Reno Sinclair stepped out of his sleek red car in the ShinRa parking garage to find himself boxed in by a broad expanse of black leather and silver hair. It wasn't like he was actually trapped; he was quick and lithe and could easily have gone over either vehicle to the side him, but why would he? He smirked at Sephiroth.

"I see you got my message." Reno saw Sephiroth's frown deepen in annoyance. This was _too_ perfect.

"You," Sephiroth growled through clenched teeth, "are going to leave Cloud alone."

"Why would I do that? Cute little thing, Third Class, thinks he's all grown up but doesn't really know shit about all the perilous workings of ShinRa, doesn't know what's real and when he's being played..."

Sephiroth took an angry step forward. Had the whole scene last night of saving Cloud from a bullet been staged? Or just good luck for the redhead? He'd never know. Damn Turk.

"Ah, ah, ah," Reno said, refusing to back down under the General's menacing bulk. "I don't think you want to be doing any violence to me. Remember Turk retribution. Anything happens to me they'll take care of you quick."

"You think I care?"

"Maybe not," Reno lit a cigarette, remembering the garage had not been designated a non-smoking area. Yet. "But think carefully here. They are going to want you pacified before coming for you. They'll grab the blond cutie first. And when they're done with him they won't want to leave him around as a witness."

Reno marveled at the affect this had, Sephiroth actually turned a shade of red. And he felt a stab of bitterness, that this whelp of a boy could impact the stony General so.

"What do you want, Reno?" Sephiroth said, barely unable to unclench his teeth enough to talk.

"You. I want my yearly tussle that I missed. It's not much to ask, I think blondie can spare you one night a year."

"No." Sephiroth said without hesitation. Not only because he knew it would hurt Cloud, but because he was sure if he got that close to Reno he would kill him.

"Tsk, tsk, well, I guess our game continues then. And if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a meeting. They'll be down to get me in a moment, since I'm sure they've located me by now." Reno nodded towards a camera mounted on the ceiling nearby.

Sephiroth gave the camera one murderous glare before spinning and stalking away. Reno grinned. He was going to have some sort of fun at least. And he loved being a Turk. Sephiroth didn't even know that particular camera had been off-line all week.


	10. Old Sins

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Just to be clear, I love Reno. **

"I'm just saying you're a little flirty now, that's all. You never were before."

Anthony tilted his beer bottle up to his lips, his eyes laughing at Cloud's discomfort. The two of them were having their bi-weekly catch-up with a few drinks at a common Soldier hangout. Anthony had just returned from Kalm; he alternated a week there and a week in Midgar on rotation as part of Cho's squad. Anthony liked Cho, but as a new First Class the guy made a lot of command mistakes. As a result the General was spending extra time with Cho's unit, riding the young commander and everyone else's ass until the performance of the squad was up to par. It was an exhilarating and terrifying time for all.

"But hey, it's not like you have to worry about it or anything," Anthony continued. "Like anybody's going to take you up on it while you're with the General."

"Well, normally. But apparently Turks are not deterred by this," Cloud said.

"You flirted with a Turk?"

"I think so. I wasn't paying close attention at the time." Cloud hadn't thought about Reno at all for the last few days, until this morning when he bumped into what he hoped he would not. An assignment with Turks. He was stuck asking Major Niven who was to be on the Turk on the team, and then having to tell him he couldn't go. Niven had raised an eyebrow in surprise and concern.

"_The General has forbid my any contact with the Turk Reno Sinclair," Cloud said. "Ordered, actually."_

"_May I ask why?"_

_Cloud had shifted uneasily. He knew Niven well enough now that when he asked instead of ordered something he actually meant it; Cloud had a choice. The type of interaction that Reno had initiated had sort of made this a personal matter, so maybe he should keep quiet. But he didn't want to disappoint his commander, and Niven was one of Sephiroth's First Classes, after all. Seph trusted him._

"_Seph seems to think this Turk has it in for him, and that he means to use me to that end."_

Niven had frowned ferociously at that, and reassigned Cloud immediately. Along with a quiet suggestion that they both keep their eyes open for the General's sake, as he was notoriously reluctant to ask for help and if Turks were gunning for him he might need it. Then the man had smiled at him ever so slightly, and it occurred to Cloud for the first time that Niven accepted him, not only as a Soldier but as the General's companion. And also maybe the guy didn't completely hate him.

"Well," said Anthony, "I hope you're not looking to trade-in for some Turk. Everything still good? You and Sephiroth, I mean?"

"Things are great actually. Winternight was fabulous."

"Oh, right, I heard about the little caroling episode. Those guys are still giddy over it, getting to go up to the General's quarters and all. He give you those?" Anthony gestured with his bottle to one of Cloud's earrings.

"Yeah, he did." Cloud took a swig of his beer and thought about the secret materia slot. He felt like he was keeping things from Anthony, and he didn't like that. But it wasn't like he shared everything between him and Sephiroth. But this was... confusing. This wasn't just personal, he was carrying a hidden weapon, a tool, a healing device. Shouldn't his comrades in arms know about it, if he was unconscious or something and they could use it to help him or another Soldier... He needed to talk to Sephiroth more about this.

Cloud noticed Anthony for about the fourth time look over to a group of three girls. The pretty brunette stole another look back, smiling.

"I think you better go over there," Cloud said.

Anthony took one more swallow of his drink for courage. Monsters, terrorists, roving beasts, mako injections- all these he could handle bravely. Girls were a whole separate level of terrifying.

"Wish me luck," Anthony said, "I'd ask you along, but you know how it goes."

"Yeah, they get scared off by more than one guy. But they get to have a whole gaggle around them all the time,"

"Exactly. You guy guys have it so easy," Anthony said.

Cloud smiled in his sudden solitude, soaking in the seedy dimness of the bar, thinking Anthony was probably right.

"Hey, Cloud!"

Cloud looked up at the new voice. It was attached to a graceful, confident, redhead who had just walked into the bar. Cloud cursed his inattention.

"Hey Reno," Cloud tried to sound casual, tried to feel casual as he worked on how to extricate himself without causing a scene.

"Glad I ran into you," Reno said, taking Anthony's vacant seat at the bar next to Cloud and signaling the bar tender for a beer.

"I wanted to, um, apologize," Reno said, "For last time. Hey man, I was way out of line."

"Don't sweat it," Cloud said, relieved at the direction this was heading.

"No, I mean it. And I probably didn't react the way you expected either, when you told me you were with Sephiroth. I was just kind of off balance for a moment, and that's actually an abnormal thing for me if you can believe it."

Cloud nodded amiably. He had a chance to observe Reno in the field and after. He was impressively cool headed.

"I mean I just didn't..."

Reno shook his head, momentarily at a loss. Cloud looked at him sideways, the man was way uncomfortable.

"What?" Cloud asked.

Reno turned steady turquoise eyes to Cloud. "I knew he had somebody now, I was just surprised to bump into you that way. I've been actually trying not to pay too much attention." Reno's beer appeared in front of him and he casually dropped the gil for it on the bar. He took a sip, and then stared at the bar's surface, digging a fingernail at a rupture in the varnish. "I'm guessing he told you I was just a casual thing. And I'm sure for him that was true."

Reno tossed back a large swallow as Cloud's mind worked to wrap itself around that comment. Sephiroth and Reno? This was the bad history Seph had referred to?

"Well, hey, no hard feelings, or anything?" Reno asked.

"No, no way," Cloud said, and found himself shaking Reno's hand. It was warm and solid.

"And please tell Seph stop worrying about me, he 'bout scared me to death when he came to see me the other day."

"He went to see you?" Cloud asked, forgetting to let go of Reno's hand.

"Yeah, yeah, gave me the whole bit." Reno shook his head, smiling a little now, "You know, 'stay away from Cloud, he's mine', and... well, yeah." Reno looked down, noticed his hand still in Cloud's, and slid it out of Cloud's grasp. He looked away, down at the bar, and back to his beer during an uncomfortable lull.

"Hey, what about that action the other day though, was that fucked up or what?" Reno said to change the subject.

"Yeah, totally," Cloud said, though his mind was still elsewhere.

"I wish Turk and Soldier could get better organized together, so we wouldn't be stepping on each other like that. I had a good mission today with some of your guys, though. Went off like clockwork, beautiful. We'd been working for months on this ecoterrorist plot to blow up one of the towers, and we finally got all the major players in a hotel suite at the same time in sector four. About twenty of them, muscle, guns, whatnot. Turks coordinated the operation; four of your guys took down the door, part of the wall, _all_ the muscle, most of the terrorists, all I had to do was clean up. But you won't believe what happened –." Reno lowered his voice and leaned forward conspiratorially. Cloud leaned in likewise to hear. The guys hadn't checked in yet from that mission by the time he had left and he hadn't heard how the mission had gone.

"We had this crazy guy with us, Roberto something-."

"Aragon, yeah, I know him. Wild."

"Yeah, right, well he decides the wall toppling thing is so fun he gets the guys together and they take down the wall to the suite across the hall too, even though it has nuthin' to do with the operation. So I'm watching the wall come down, four Soldiers on top of it, bits of drywall and dust wafting into the room, the bedroom actually, and guess who's in the bed? In the middle of the day, Sector four?"

"Who?" Cloud whispered. He had no idea who, or why he was whispering.

"Old man ShinRa and Scarlet."

Cloud's eyes went wide, he remembered the woman Scarlet from the Winternight party, half the President's age, and with huge...

"She screamed, he yelled, it was glorious! I lobbed a smoke bomb in there and hollered at your guys to get the hell out of there, you know, before either of the two horny execs could make them."

"But won't there still be trouble?" Cloud asked. The guys would all be listed on the mission roster, and he didn't want to see Roberto or anyone in his squad in trouble with the executives, remembering the result from the whole Zack- Palmer's-daughter thing. Especially since somebody on that mission must have taken his place.

"Nah, what are they going to do, complain to Tseng or Seph? They'd have to explain, so if they couldn't see a specific Soldier to ID and target unfairly by some other means, no problems."

They both laughed, and when they came to a stop Cloud found himself looking into Reno's eyes, grateful on the part of his guys, appreciating the dispersion of tension, and enjoying Reno's smile. And then quite suddenly Reno's lips were on his, moving, kissing, and he kissed him back, recognizing that smoky sweet taste from the last time, wanting more of that taste. Then Cloud gave the Turk a shove that almost sent them both over.

Reno blinked in surprise as Cloud rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Gaia, Cloud, sorry," Reno said, "I did it again. Lost my head." Reno turned back to his beer, looked at it as though thinking better of it, and set it back down. "I really shouldn't drink."

Cloud sighed. "Just don't do that again," he said, and then groaned at the sight of Zack at the door. Normally he was happy to see Zack, but lately he'd just been a pest. Cloud had actually worked to give him the slip earlier so he could get an evening alone with Anthony. And this was such bad timing; here he was sitting at the bar with the guy Sephiroth had ordered him to avoid. Although it could have been worse. It could have been ten seconds ago.

Reno followed Cloud's gaze to the door and saw Zack Fair scanning the dark bar.

"Looks like you've got a tail," Reno said.

"What?"

"Trust me, I know a tail when I see one, that one's tailing you. I think I better be going. See you around, kid."

Reno left, walking cool as an ice cube under Zack's obvious hostile glare. Zack took the seat next to Cloud.

"Hey Cl-."

"Did Seph tell you to follow me?" Cloud demanded.

"What?"

"Don't 'what' me, Zack, did he tell you to follow me?"

"Gaia, Cloud, he said he was worried about you, asked me to keep an extra eye on you, make sure you were safe. Not like I mind spending extra time with you."

Zack reached out to touch Cloud's shoulder but the blonde jerked away.

"Safe from what?" Cloud said.

"Turks actually. I figured he was just 'noiding, like he does sometimes, but didn't I just see you in here with that Turk Reno?"

Cloud looked sullenly at his beer.

"Cloud, stay away from those guys, they're sneaky as hell and always up to no good." Zack picked up Reno's abandoned bottle from the bar, testing its weight. It was still cold and half full. Good. Maybe the Turk had only sat down for a moment.

"I have to see Seph." Cloud stood up to go, noticing Anthony was already fixing to leave with the brunette. He turned abruptly back to Zack.

"Don't follow me," he hissed, and with that stormed out of the bar.

Zack Fair sat at the bar and contemplated PHS. Maybe Sephiroth would like a heads up, but this was one they were going to have to work out on their own.

cccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth opened his door silently and took a whiff into the apartment as was his habit. Cloud was present, home early. He detected the faint, stale cigarette bar smell, certainly brought in on Cloud from his night out with Anthony. Breakfast form this morning vaguely lingered, but nothing new. Cloud smelled odd though, he detected something- aggression? Anger maybe?

"Cloud?" Sephiroth asked, before he even slipped in the door. He removed his boots and saw the blonde on the couch, his mako blues blazing in the dark room. He turned on the lights, keeping the dimmer on low.

"What's up?" Sephiroth stepped carefully across the room and reached for Cloud. Cloud moved deliberately away.

"Why didn't you tell me you and Reno had been lovers?"

Sephiroth froze, arm still outstretched towards Cloud. His silence only fueled Cloud's frustration.

"Is this why you told me to avoid him? So I wouldn't find out?"

"Cloud, no," Sephiroth reached again for Cloud, but this only caused Cloud to stand up and square off with him.

"Is it over? You and him?" Cloud demanded.

Sephiroth took a deep breath, trying to clear his head and form an answer. Cloud had just asked five questions, barely waiting for an answer. "There was nothing to _be_ over. Did you see him?"

"Did you? Go to see him?"

"Answer me first!" Sephiroth growled.

"Yeah, I saw him. I did what you asked, avoided a mission with him. I just _accidentally_ saw him at the bar. I can't believe you didn't tell me any of this, and went to see him without saying anything!" Cloud yelled. "And I am NOT your property!"

"I never said you were!" Sephiroth closed on Cloud, fist clenched and eyes lighting. "And Reno and I were NOT lovers, that implies affection on both sides and there is none on either!"

"Reno seems to feel differently!"

"You would listen to this Turk, a man you barely know, over me?!"

"Well if you wouldn't hide things from me maybe I wouldn't have to hear them from some Turk!"

"Ungrateful mongrel!"

"Fuck you!" Cloud yelled, breathing hard. "Argh!"

Cloud stomped out through the door and slammed it powerfully behind him. There was no way he could fight with Sephiroth toe to toe this way. The guy was stronger, faster, and louder than him. And meaner. Had Sephiroth called him a... mongrel? He was beyond understanding what the hell that could have meant. And what was he doing out in this hallway? In his socks, no coat, all his gear left behind. He'd need that stuff if he was going to stay downstairs for awhile. He turned back toward the door and stood looking at it. No keycard either. He was locked out.

Cloud stood in front of the door, clenching and unclenching his fists. A minute passed while he stewed in his anger. He needed his stuff, but he couldn't bring himself to knock. Quite suddenly the door opened, jerked open, slammed open, in a noisy rush of air. Sephiroth stood on the other side, poised to exit, possibly to go after Cloud. As it was he stopped just short of running Cloud over, and they glared at one another, inches apart. Then quite suddenly something broke, a change in the heart and mind that neither would be able to determine from whom it started, and both wrapped arms around each other. Sephiroth guided them back inside and quietly shut the door.

"I'm sorry, Cloud, I don't want to fight."

"Me neither."

"I promise I won't yell. Did I frighten you?" Sephiroth asked, looking anxious, mortified even.

Cloud shook his head. "More like you frustrate me."

Then Cloud actually smiled a little, thinking how it never occurred to him to be frightened. He couldn't even imagine Sephiroth hitting or hurting him in that way.

"And of course I believe you," Cloud said, "You're no liar. You... omit things. It's a cousin to lying, you know."

Sephiroth winced.

"You need to talk to me. This thing with Reno is affecting me, and I need you to tell me everything if I'm to make good decisions."

Sephiroth nodded. It was sound reasoning. He wouldn't send a man out in the field and withhold information on the enemy. But he didn't know where to start.

Cloud decided prodding was needed. "Semantics aside regarding whether or not you were lovers, you had sex with Reno?"

"Yes," Sephiroth said. "Three times."

"That's it?" Cloud blurted out, sounding almost disappointed in his surprise.

Sephiroth nodded. "Once a year for the past three years."

Cloud frowned. This was going to be another one of those oddball stories. Maybe their annual 'appointment' was due, and that's why this was coming up now. Or maybe not... he counted months, he and Sephiroth had been together almost a year.

"Have you been with him since you were with me?" Cloud asked carefully, feeling another outburst just under his breath should Sephiroth answer yes.

"No. I've been confused about some things, but I've always understood that other men were off my menu."

Cloud nodded, thinking of the many things Sephiroth got confused over. "But you saw him the day before last?"

Sephiroth nodded.

"Didn't do anything on your list did you?" Cloud said, referring to the list he had made of 'things Sephiroth should not do if he wanted to keep Cloud'.

"Never," Sephiroth said, "I have it memorized." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper, folded and somewhat worn.

Cloud stared at the paper, completely distracted from his current line of questioning. "You carry that around with you? Why?"

"It's the only thing I have that you've written me."

Cloud made a mental note to write the man a love letter or something. But then he thought that this thing, this strange list that Sephiroth's bizarre upbringing had made necessary, was possibly the most romantic thing he could think of. Sephiroth tried, every day, to be what Cloud needed. He held onto that list like a lifeline to Cloud, to Cloud's love. Cloud pulled tight to Sephiroth and let his head sink into the other man's chest, shutting his eyes and willing himself to relax, not pulling away until he felt Sephiroth's lips in his hair. Then he looked up at Sephiroth, face open and compassionate.

"Just try and tell me everything, start at the beginning."

Sephiroth nodded. As painful as this was it seemed there was no way around it.

"I met Reno shortly after he hired on as a Turk, at that annual summer party that Rufus ShinRa thows. Rufus started young with every manner of sin money could buy and I... I was frequently bored back then. And commonly in a state of what you might call sexual frustration."

Sephiroth paused, struggling. Cloud tried to keep his face neutral and encouraging.

"I've never had anyone like you before," Sephiroth touched Cloud's cheek and smiled, suddenly back in the present. "Someone regular. Someone I loved. Back then I took partners sporadically, for one session maybe, usually professionals, and this party was designed for that type of thing."

Cloud had to ask. "Is this the same party you brought home the two Honeybees from last summer?"

Sephiroth's face contracted from the memory, the mistake that had nearly cost him Cloud.

"Yes. Alcohol, drugs of every type, Honeybees, Hosutos, often everything going on in the common area... it's a pretty wild time."

Cloud made a silent decision that Sephiroth was _never_ going to this party again if he could do anything about it. The Honeybee memory was pretty distressing on its own, but the image of Sephiroth with a Hosuto boy, or several of the expensive, exotically gorgeous male prostitutes... He pushed it out of his mind.

"Anyway," Sephiroth continued, "That first year Reno showed up he was a fish in water. Gaia that guy can drink."

Cloud recalled Reno's comment from the bar, after he had kissed him, about how he shouldn't drink. As if he were a lightweight pushed easily out of control.

"Reno was, is, cocky as hell. He was working to seduce me pretty hard, and I can't deny he's beautiful. But you know how I feel about Turks."

Cloud nodded.

"Plus of all things he wanted to top. I told him I'd kill him if he tried. He said I wouldn't be able to or wouldn't dare or some such thing. So I took after him, meaning just to knock some quiet into him, but Gaia is he quick. And sneaky. And armed. I did finally catch him, not without injury myself, and then... we fucked."

Cloud waited to gather his thoughts. "You raped him?"

Now it was Sephiroth's turn to consider. "I don't think so. He certainly seemed to enjoy it enough, all that screaming and clutching and panting. And orgasming."

Cloud scrunched up his face. That was a bit more imagery than he cared for.

"It became some sort of a tradition after that. Once a year, we'd fight, then fuck."

"What are you fighting for?" Cloud asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe just to fight. Maybe for who tops."

"And what if you lost?" Cloud asked, horrified.

"I never think about losing."

It was true. Sephiroth only ever thought about winning.

"And this last year, you saw him at the party?"

"Yes," Sephiroth said. "I ignored him. He was pissed."

"What's he been doing all this time then?" Cloud wondered out loud.

"Plotting."

Cloud raised his eyebrows. That was pretty hard to believe, but then again, from what he'd heard of Turks...

"Two days ago I accosted him in the ShinRa parking ramp," Sephiroth continued. "He said... he made some comment as to your vulnerability, to not knowing when you were being played."

Cloud bristled.

"I'm sorry. Cloud..."

"No, it's OK." Cloud reviewed his latest encounter with Reno. The Reno he met was unassuming, gentle, and apologetic for an advance that half a beer lured him into. A little self-conscious. The Reno Sephiroth described was cocky, heavy drinking, manipulative, and with a taste for wild sex. Differences in perception alone couldn't account for these disparate personas. One of these representations of Reno was a lie, maybe both, and that was a confusing train of thought. But Cloud knew who he trusted. He trusted Sephiroth. .

"He was right, I couldn't tell." Cloud cringed, remembering one more thing. "I kissed him again."

Sephiroth clenched his jaw and ground his teeth until muscle cords stood out on his jaw. "You kissed him? Again?"

"He kissed me," Cloud said, clearer this time on the whole 'who was kissing whom' thing, especially in the light of what Reno was up to. "I shoved him off, but I had let my guard down. He was just so... charming."

"He can be," Sephiroth said begrudgingly.

"Listen Cloud, I would've taken care of him in the parking lot, but he made a very valid point that doing so would rain Turk retribution down on me, and they would start that attack with you. Please, please take this seriously. Reno, and the rest of them, are very dangerous. They won't be as strong as you because their enhancements are tailored for speed. But Reno is probably quicker than you. He's wary and armed with things you wouldn't dream of. I don't want you alone where he can get at you; stay with your squad or with me or with Zack."

Cloud nodded. Zack. He suddenly felt bad for yelling at him earlier. This had been a tough night all around. They readied for bed and turned in with little more conversation. There would be no lovemaking tonight, both of them too raw with this unsolved problem and the sexual intrusion Reno represented hovering in the air.

In the big warm bed Cloud lay against Sephiroth's chest, thinking, worrying in the dark.

"What are you going to do?" Cloud asked.

"Kill him. I just don't know how yet."

Cloud was still, listening to the sound of Sephiroth's heart. Could the Turks really kill his love, take him away forever? Cloud had no doubt they would do something if Sephiroth took out one of their men. And if they were as clever as everyone kept saying the General who never considered defeat might lose this one. He closed his eyes to the breathing and rhythm in Sephiroth's body. Sephiroth was his. He wasn't about to let anything happen to him. He would lie, steal, kill if he had to, but nothing was happening to Sephiroth.


	11. To Do What's Needed

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

Cloud reported for duty as usual the next morning, but he had trouble concentrating. He desperately wanted to talk to Zack. Zack was so strong, in the last year Cloud had learned better than ever just how strong his friend was. Underneath his happy-go-lucky persona Zack was at his core an indomitable spirit who could do what was needed, whatever was needed. But he couldn't go to Zack. Zack would never agree to let him do this, Zack would want to protect him, just as Sephiroth did. Cloud would have be that guy who could do what was required. He continued on his way to cafeteria, feeling dark but still determined, and very much alone.

"Hey, Cloud, look who's here!"

Cloud turned to see Anthony heading down the hall, arm and arm with Thom.

"You have time to eat lunch with a buddy from out of town?" Thom asked, grinning broadly.

Cloud smiled. What had he been thinking? He didn't have to go it alone, he was Soldier after all, and Soldiers worked together. These were exactly the guys he needed. After a warm greeting the three young men collected trays of bland but nutritious food in the Soldier cafeteria and Cloud found them an out of the way table.

"So you're just off duty, with nuthin' to do? At all?" Anthony asked Thom.

"Yup. Gavin grabbed me off of morning rounds, plus a few other guys, got us on an airship and here we are. Told me to stay out of trouble and keep my PHS on in case he needed me."

"Did he say why?" Cloud asked, stirring his mixed vegetables absently.

"No," Thom said, his face becoming serious. "He wouldn't tell me. He just said the General called him in. Cloud, what's going on?"

Cloud looked from one to the other. He'd worked with a lot of guys in Soldier, become friendly with many of them, but none understood him like these two. They had been together since those first awful days as cadets, and they knew all his pains and all his secrets. Well, almost.

"I need some help," Cloud said.

Thom and Anthony leaned in. "We're all ears," Anthony said.

Cloud outlined his situation, skipping as much of the sordid details regarding Sephiroth's interactions with Reno as he could and still be clear.

"Shit Cloud," Thom said. "I think you have to take care of this, you're the one under attack, as it were. You're the one in position to shut him down."

"I think so too," Cloud said, "and I may not have much time. I think Seph is getting ready to do something, Gavin's not the only one called home, I saw Colonel Kuhn, with some of his men this morning. He hardly ever comes in from Corel. Malik and Greigos too. And I haven't seen Zack or Niven or Cho all day."

Thom gave a low whistle. "A regular First Class pow wow."

Cloud nodded. "Anthony, can you get off duty tonight?"

"Sure, I can trade with someone. Bingo owes me a favor."

"OK," Cloud said, "I'm pretty sure I know where Reno will be at 5:00. I'll tell you what I want you to do. But first, I need one of you to hit me."

cccccccccccccccccc

At five minutes to 5:00 Anthony and Thom were loitering near the door to conference room 6A, waiting for the finish of the review meeting from the last Turk-Soldier co-mission, the one where the ecoterrorists were captured in the hotel. Cloud had said Reno would be in there, along with some guys from his squad. Shortly the door opened and most guys headed towards the Soldier areas, and one redhead in a suit headed the other way. Anthony and Thom made sure they were already in motion in the same direction and in the middle of a conversation.

"I dunno," Thom said, "Cloud got himself into this, he can get himself out. He can't stay with me, we don't have the space."

"Well he can't stay with _me,_ I got Alicia coming over tonight!"

Thom gripped his forehead as if to keep it from swelling in pain. "Where is he anyway?"

"I think he went to the bar."

"Paul's Place?"

"Yeah." Anthony said, trying not to look at the Turk, who he thought might have changed his pace to better match theirs. Or maybe he wasn't listening at all.

"Well," Thom said, "I'll go check on him in a few hours after I finish my stuff. If he's still there maybe we can figure something out."

Thom and Anthony turned into the administration area to pick up some forms they didn't really need, and gratefully the Turk continued on past. They continued with their activities trying to act as natural as possible in case Reno was still observing them in some way, but they hoped he wasn't, knowing that the less acting they had to do the better. Turks were trained for this sort of covert stuff; they weren't.

Once the hallway was completely clear they took off at a run for the Soldier training hall, a three story wart attached to the side of the main tower. The hall was empty at the moment, and they ran up the stairwell on the far side. At the top of the three stories the door to the roof access had been damaged by some restless Soldiers long before them, resulting in a door that appeared locked and functional but if you put your shoulder into the frame hard enough, and if you had the strength of Third Class Soldier at least, you could tweak the whole thing out of alignment enough to pop it open. Often Soldiers, sometimes with dates, could be found up there drinking, relaxing, laughing - but it was Monday night, a slow night for that kind of thing and the roof was empty. Anthony and Thom went to the South side, the side that flanked the street and was kitty corner across form the Soldier hangout Paul's Place. They peeked over the edge. Within a few minutes they saw the top of a shiny red head catch in the streetlight, exiting the ShinRa building and heading towards the bar.

Thom elbowed Anthony in excitement, and then the Turk below them started turning, sweeping the buildings around him with suspicious gaze. Both Soldiers immediately lowered their heads and shut their eyes, dropping their minds into a mental mantra of imagining they were a stone in a field, a dead object, not seeing, not knowing. It was how they were trained to elude detection by mako beasts that had ability to sense life, intelligence, or observation. They weren't sure if Turks fell into that category but figured better safe than sorry.

Reno looked around the street one more time, checking both ground and building level. He could have sworn he was being watched, but he neither saw nor felt anything now. Possible it was just an animal. Pigeon or something. That was the problem with having your radar tuned up so high, half the time he picked something up it wasn't anything. And he was in a rather anxious state, or more accurately excited state, as his prey was almost in his grasp.

Reno pushed the door open and a wave of the familiar bar ambience hit him. Dozens of simultaneous conversations, each oblivious to every other, the sound of ice cubes hitting glasses, two different sports games on TVs hanging above the bartenders head. And at the bar, silent and alone, sat the object of his mission.

"Hey kid," Reno slid cautiously into the seat next to Cloud. He picked one of the four bottles in front of Cloud. Empty. The blonde was apparently drinking faster than the barkeep was taking away. "Hittin' it pretty hard tonight?"

Cloud didn't look at him. "I guess," he said sullenly.

"Want to tell me why?" Reno asked.

"No."

"Nuthin' to do with me, is it?" Reno asked slowly, apologetically

"No, Gaia, no," Cloud looked up at Reno, then quickly away.

But not quickly enough. Reno had seen the mark on his face and reached up gently to touch Cloud's chin. "Let me see that," he said, then encouraged him with small soothing words until Cloud faced him. The kid had a hell of a shiner over his eye.

"Training accident," Cloud lied, and turned away again.

Reno detected the lie, but nodded anyway. "And Medical was all out of materia?"

"I didn't want to go to Medical," Cloud said.

"Well, I happen to have some with me. Here, let me heal that up for you." Reno did it without asking permission. As he expected Cloud sat still for him, and even smiled a little afterwards, putting his fingers to his eyes. Something inside Reno's brain coiled and uncoiled like a satisfied snake. Cloud was as good as in the sack.

"Thanks," Cloud said actually feeling a little of the gratitude he evinced. The thing was starting to throb like a son of a bitch. Thom and Anthony had rock-paper-scissored over who had to do it, and Thom, the loser, had really nailed him good.

Reno smiled at him, and Cloud let himself get lost in that smile. The Turk really was beautiful, and he would need to feel every ounce of appreciation he could for him if he was to play his part well. He needed to not to think about him and Sephiroth...

Cloud looked back down at his beer lest his thought be betrayed in his face.

Reno had caught the change and slid his stool a little closer, scraping the feet along the wooden floor.

"Sephiroth did that to you, didn't he?" Reno asked.

Cloud nodded, still not daring to look up.

Reno sighed. "I'm sorry Cloud. He can be pretty rough. I know." Reno ran his fingers through his hair, the shorter pieces on top of his head sticking up through his long fingers and catching Cloud's attention.

"Say, you got someplace to stay tonight?" Reno asked.

"No," Cloud shook his head and looked back down.

"Well I got plenty of room- guest bed, spare bath, the whole deal. You could crash at my place tonight."

"Really? Do you live in the tower?"

"Nah, too much ShinRa all day long, I don't need to be around it all night. I've got a place off-site."

Cloud nodded. He thought Reno lived off-site, since Sephiroth had said he had talked to him in the parking ramp and he thought the ramp was only for commuters. He motioned for another beer and waited for Raman, a bartender Cloud was friendly with, to appear.

"Is it far?" Cloud asked, catching Raman's eye and nodding a thank-you.

"Nah, about five miles, in the Hannon building. C'mon, I have a car. And you don't need any more of that." Reno took the beer out of Cloud's hand and set it back onto the bar. "What's you're tab?"

Cloud furrowed his brows in concentration, wondering how much he could stick Reno for. "I think that was number nine."

Reno dropped fifty gil on the bar, and with his hand on the small of Cloud's back guided him towards the door.

Raman the bartender scooped up the fifty gil smiling, only partly because Cloud hadn't drunk anything like nine beers, the kid had just asked him to scrounge up some empties to put in front of him. He smiled because he liked Cloud, and if the little rascal wanted to pick up a wild date and still want his friends to know where he was going, just to be safe, well he was happy to help with that. He dialed the number Cloud had given him, waited for another young Soldier to pick up, and said, "Hannon building."

On the roof of the training hall Anthony and Thom watched the door to the bar, more cautiously this time and not together. Anthony got the call giving him their destination at about the same time Cloud came out with Reno. Reno gave only a curious glance to the empty cab that sat waiting outside the complex before he continued inside with Cloud. The parking garage was way on the other side of the complex, a good five minute walk. Thom and Anthony had the head start they needed. As soon Cloud and Reno disappeared they both dropped from the roof, three stories straight down to the pavement, bending knees as they landed and rolling to absorb the shock. They stood up and grinned. They might never be able to jump three stories straight up like the General, but jumping down was another matter.

"I never thought this was what I would be using my Soldier skills for," Anthony said.

"Shut up," Thom said, pushing him into the waiting cab, the driver of which still stared at them open mouthed after seeing them fall unscathed from the top of a building. This was one of the reasons he hated pickups from ShinRa.

ccccccccccccccccc

Cloud took small glances up and down the street as Reno pulled into the parking area of his building. He didn't see the cab or Thom or Anthony anywhere. He hoped that was a good sign, but either way the die was cast now. It was up to him, and all his backup could do now is maybe clean up the mess if he made one. And hopefully he wouldn't make a mess of it; he seemed to be doing well even though he had to talk some in the car ride. Reno's desire to put Cloud at ease actually made it easy to talk, relax, even behave a little giddy or silly.

"And here we are," Reno said, letting Cloud in ahead of him to look around. Reno watched him intently as the young Soldier wandered a bit, like a pet exploring a new house.

"Guest bed is down the hall," Reno dropped his keys on the kitchen counter with a clatter and led Cloud to the guest room. "And, oops, looks like we have to get some sheets on the bed."

Reno stepped back out of the room, but stopped in the doorway, nearly becoming wedged there with Cloud. He looked into the mako bright blues and saw the interest there.

"Unless..." Reno said slowly, "You want to sleep with me?"

Cloud swallowed, then nodded, his nerves on fire.

Reno smiled, Cloud really was adorable. He had originally thought he might rough Cloud up some when he finally got to this part and send him back to Sephiroth bruised and humiliated, but since the General himself had a mind to beat Cloud maybe he would try gentleness, see if he could keep Cloud for himself. But if that failed, if Cloud went back to his abuser as his kind often did, Sephiroth won. That was no good. Best plan maybe was just to enjoy Cloud and then let Sephy-boy know he'd had him.

Reno put a hand to Cloud's face, then kissed him. This time there was no jerking back in surprise, no shoving Reno off the bar stool. This time Cloud returned the kiss, without reservation, even pressing forward a little like he needed this kiss, was desperate for it.

When the kiss broke Cloud looked at Reno, pushing fear and thoughts of Sephiroth far from his mind, concentrating on enjoying the man in front of him. His eyes cast up to that amazing red hair.

"You like it?"

Cloud nodded, still feeling gestures would serve him better than his voice.

Reno undid the ponytail tie and brought the length of his hair around the front of his shoulder for Cloud.

"You can touch," he said, noticing Cloud's hesitation. "Bastard doesn't let you touch his hair, does he?" Reno said softly, tinged with what sounded like true bitterness.

Cloud at first looked at Reno surprise, then shook his head no. He reached up and stroked Reno's hair, so smooth that what he was assuming was a dye job couldn't possibly be. He also had no two-toning where his roots were. It seemed to be coming out of his head this color. Cloud brought both hands up to run them through the red silk, then stopping them on Reno's chest over the thin white shirt.

"Can I..."

Cloud was so anxious he could hardly breathe. He needed to get Reno's jacket off at least, maybe more.

"You can touch anything you want, sweetheart. But you have to share."

Cloud pushed Reno's jacket off his shoulders and felt the Turk undo his utility belt and unfasten the leather armor that protected the lower half of Cloud's torso. The fasteners for the thing were tricky, but Reno had no trouble at all. Before Cloud knew it his shirt had been peeled off as weel and he had to work fast at the buttons on Reno's shirt to keep up. Now Reno's hands were on his bare skin, and his lips on Cloud's neck. Cloud let himself pant with his nervousness, and he found he was getting a rise as well. That was good, he needed that, but it worried him.

They had taken a few steps during this, towards the back room that Cloud figured must be the master bedroom. Once inside Reno did something with his feet and tripped Cloud so that he fell back, sitting on the bed. Cloud almost lost his head and attacked, but the Turk hadn't given him enough advantage yet. Reno was free of his suitcoat, but his trousers were clearly holding... items. Some of that tricky stuff Sephiroth had warned him about, and surely his materia was still on him somewhere. And he hadn't forgotten that Reno might be quicker than he.

"Feet up," Reno said.

Cloud, realizing Reno wanted his boots off, complied. Cloud hoped that once he was stripped of all his tools and armor the Turk would relax and give him an opening. His boots were dropped to the ground, his boot knife removed and put into one, then Reno kicked the whole ensemble under his bed to get them out of the way. Cloud noticed the kick sent them far deeper under the big bed than was necessary for simple neatness.

What Cloud needed now was to stand up; he hadn't practiced his move sitting or lying. He took the excuse of standing up to remove his pants, unbuttoned the top button, and stopped.

Reno smiled, looking at the kid who was beyond nervous. Being with Sephiroth didn't look like it was doing anything for the guy's self confidence. He clearly wanted his pants off, the bulge in his groin said he wanted his pants off, but here he stood, stuck. Reno went back into encouragement mode.

"You want those off? You want me to do it?"

Reno undid the rest of Cloud's button fly until Cloud's fatigues crumpled to the floor.

"Step out of those," Reno said, and when he did Reno caught them on his foot, tossed them up to his hand, and casually threw them out into the hallway with most of Cloud's other clothing. Cloud pretended not to notice that everything he owned was being put out of his reach. What he could reach was Reno. He tentatively touched the waistband on Reno's trousers, then stopped.

"It's OK," Reno said, "you can."

Cloud fumbled with Reno's fly, a zipper which normally wouldn't be so much a problem were he not so distracted by his own nerves and Reno's hands running all over his skin, including under his boxers. Reno had already kicked his shoes off somewhere and his pants fell softly to his feet. Cloud came close and kissed him, so close that their skin touched along thighs and stomach and chest, their now full erections vying to meet through two layers of thin fabric. Cloud's hands timidly stroked Reno's skin and Reno carefully stepped away from his pants. This was normally a point of nervousness for him, to be that far away from any of his gear. But the kid had let himself be stripped down to almost nothing, and he had nothing hidden under his shorts, Reno had checked. All Cloud had on him now was his little boxers and a pair of earrings. Nice diamonds, though, whatever you might say you couldn't call the General cheap. Reno kicked his pants away from him a bit to get them out from under foot and let himself kiss Cloud with abandon.

Cloud felt the change in Reno, the complete attention he was giving the kiss, the soaking in his own pleasure. One of Cloud's hands went to the back of Reno's head and entwined itself in the long red hair. The other slid along Reno's face and jawline. Then, with one violent and sudden motion, a motion Cloud practiced to have no preamble, no warning, no half way, he yanked and pushed simultaneously and Reno's head snapped backwards with a sickening crackle.

Cloud stood stunned for a second by what he had done. Reno's eyes were still open, but they already looked glassy. Another second passed, seconds Cloud didn't have. He dumped Reno unceremoniously on the bed and darted back out to the hallway and grabbed his toolbelt, then on second thought the Turk's jacket as well. He had felt something in there, big hoops of some kind. He dug furiously through confusing pockets and came out with two pair of handcuffs. He snapped one over each of Reno's wrists, then jerked the bed back from the wall and linked them together behind a wide cutout on the headboard. Twenty seconds down. Cloud unclipped his rope and tied one of Reno's feet to the footboard, then the other. Another twenty seconds. He only had sixty seconds, after sixty the spell wouldn't work, even if he could pull it off. He straightened Reno's lopsided head, the spell carried a cure with it and he figured the bones probably had to be lined up first. He took a deep breath, touched the materia in his right earring, and said it.

"Life three!"

Reno gasped and tried to sit up, terror plain in his eyes. He looked wildly around his bedroom as if he couldn't recognize it, yanked at the bonds to his hands and feet as if he couldn't understand what was wrong with his limbs, why they weren't under his control. Then his eyes fixed on Cloud, the young Soldier who, since diving into action, had traded his nervous anxiety for a green eyed burn of anger. The fog swirling in Reno's mind began to clear. He had been dead. He knew he had been dead. He remembered dying, his conscious mind had logged the sound and sensation of his own neck snapping, and there was something worse than that. Not the dying part; that had felt sweet and alluring. It was the being jerked back into life part. Returned with the knowledge that something inside him might lure him towards that seductive sleep at any time. That his own body and mind that he relied on to perform for him, to keep him alive, might suddenly mutiny without warning, and yet at the same time every dream and desire to live burned twice as brightly as it had ever had. It was a maddening dichotomy. He didn't want to die, he really didn't want to die, yet he was more afraid of death than he had ever been.

Reno forced himself to breath slowly. He remembered the young man, the very pretty but very angry blonde looking at him. Cloud. Reno had brought him here. It was he who had broken his neck.

"Shit, kid, did you Life spell me? Do you even know how to use that spell?" It was all Reno could think to say. No way a little Third Class like this could be very proficient at it. That one took years to master, even for the very talented. And where did he get the materia? Reno's stash was well concealed, Cloud couldn't have found it in sixty seconds, and he was damn sure there wasn't anything to hold materia in Cloud's gear.

Cloud didn't answer and Reno yanked at his bonds again. His own cuffs, and some very nice knots around his feet tied by the Soldier boy.

"Why?" Reno asked, suddenly indignant.

"What did you think I was?" Cloud asked, jaw set, the cords on his neck standing out. "I am his SOLDIER!" Cloud bellowed, the volume of his own voice surprising himself as his anger continued to rise. This was the guy who meant to hurt Sephiroth, Cloud had been stifling that thought all night so he could play his part, and now it raged through him.

"I would kill for him! I would die for him, and be happy doing it!"

Reno actually curled away from transformed green-eyed monster before him that somehow managing to look menacing in pair of baby blue boxer shorts. He watched Cloud retrieve his boots, and lug them out into the hallway where he dressed. Then Cloud came back in and started digging through the Turks coat. Reno's eyes widened in fear despite his training. The kid was clearly as crazy as the General, and there was nothing in Reno's coat that boded well for his current state of bondage. And undress. Half the things in there were designed for the sole purpose of delivering pain.

What Cloud came out with was Reno's PHS. He flipped it open to check that it was on, and then set it carefully in the center of Reno's chest. Then he grinned maniacally, a look that Reno found more disturbing than the anger.

"Good luck with that," Cloud said, turned to leave, but then turned back. "By the way Reno, he _wraps_ me in that hair."

Then Cloud left, leaving the front door wide open.

Once outside Cloud began to shake violently. He'd brought up more mako and adrenaline than on an average mission but not used his muscles enough to burn it off. He'd instead depleted himself with a spell that was at the edge of his ability. He ran down the stairs three at a time and right into Thom and Anthony, who were coming up after the scheduled wait time. They caught Cloud and held him fast as he gasped and shook.

"I'm OK," Cloud finally said.

"Did you do it?" Thom asked, "Is he alive?"

"Yeah," Cloud said. "I killed him and now he's alive again."

Anthony and Thom looked at each other in relief. In training Cloud had been unusually good at Life spells, bringing his practice mouse back from the dead so many times that it had gotten neurotic, but it was still a tough spell. The rest of them had sucked at it. Every spell was tougher to launch under duress, and Cloud certainly had been under duress during this. He was no actor; he wasn't even a good liar. Thom and Anthony, already hidden in the building before Cloud and Reno arrived, had half expected to be coming up to execute the backup plan. The one where Reno lay dead and they disposed of the body, or the one where Reno had Cloud down and they attacked.

"I want Seph," Cloud said, suddenly almost in tears. They loaded Cloud into the cab and took him home.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Cloud slid his keycard through the slot, a little afraid to go in. He slowly opened the door to see Sephiroth staring right at him, his PHS to his head, a look on his face that was a jumble of worry and anger and maybe even fear.

"Never mind, Zack, he's here. Thanks. Yeah." Sephiroth snapped the device closed. "Cloud, where have you been?"

But his anger evaporated as Cloud began to sob on the landing. Sephiroth reached for him, reached even though he remembered the last two times this week he had seen Cloud in some sort of emotional state Cloud had moved away from him. But this time Cloud fell into his arms. Sephiroth squeezed him, glad to find him safe, but his worries seemed valid. He never misidentified a human's scent and he could smell Reno all over Cloud. For all his efforts the Turk had gotten to him again.

"Cloud, what happened?"

"I killed Reno," Cloud said.

Sephiroth's first reaction was a burst of joy. Then anger to hear what he already knew, Cloud had been with Reno, then proper, organized concern. A dead Turk was a problem, and a danger. One of his men was in danger, a plan was needed.

"Where's the body?" Sephiroth asked.

"Oh. I Life spelled him. He's OK. Or, he's alive. I don't know how OK he is. I left him tied up in his underwear."

Sephiroth raised his eyebrows in surprise, and had to peel Cloud's face off his chest so he could look at him. Cloud's eyes were bloodshot, he was white and shaking a little. A Life spell alone was exhausting, plus whatever Cloud had done tonight. The General took a moment to compose himself. He was relieved that Cloud was OK and he did not have a dead Turk ahead of schedule. And he was oddly proud of Cloud pulling this off, but he was angry that the young Third Class had gone off and done something on his own when he had distinctly told him to stay with his unit.

"You planned this in advance? Without saying a word to me?" Sephiroth asked.

"Yes," Cloud looked down unable to hold Sephiroth's eyes. "I know; it's the same thing I complain of you doing."

"There is a difference. I am you commander."

Cloud hung his head. "I didn't tell any of my commanders, if that makes you feel any better."

Sephiroth almost laughed, but kept his face stern. This was probably one of those times where he shouldn't let on to some of the things he found funny.

"It does not," Sephiroth said, "But I think I understand a little better your frustration when I don't tell you things."

"And I think I understand better your wanting to keep things from me. I only wanted to protect you."

Something that felt like a small ribbon flipped and curled in Sephiroth's stomach. Or maybe that's where his heart was. He found himself smiling at Cloud despite the situation. It occurred to Sephiroth that Cloud had done the right thing, he hit the nail right on the head.

"And you did," Sephiroth said. "I'm sorry to say I didn't see this myself; this was the perfect solution, to show Reno you are not the vulnerable target he assumed you to be. And had it occurred to me I don't think I could have asked you, would not have let you, do something like this. But you did. You protected us both." Sephiroth pulled Cloud into an embrace so his lips were near Cloud's ear. "My hero," he whispered.

Cloud actually straightened up in Sephiroth's arms, a physical manifestation of what he always assumed was only a poetic description to 'puff one's chest up in pride'. Cloud, Sephiroth's hero? His hero's hero? The poisonous bile that had been making Cloud ill and threatening him with tears since he left Reno's building drained miraculously from him with those whispered words. He realized his feelings were mostly from worry over how Sephiroth would react. But he hadn't told him everything. Cloud cringed back a little from his proud posture.

"I had to touch him," Cloud said, "And let him touch me. And I kissed him quite a lot."

Sephiroth nodded, trying hard NOT to visualize. "This was part of your plan? This was how you got to him?"

Cloud nodded.

"Did he... penetra-."

"No!" Cloud said quickly. "Gaia, no, I'd have killed him sooner, or at least tried to, if it had come to that."

Sephiroth relaxed. "Thank-you. I'm not sure how I would have reacted otherwise. Yes I do. I'd be over there killing him again."

He looked at Cloud, studying his face. What strength Cloud had. The strength, grit, and determination of a Soldier.

"Cloud, the next time I bump into something I'm tempted to protect you from, I promise to work with you on it instead. Partners, OK?"

Cloud smiled and regained that proud bearing. "Partners," he said.

Sephiroth smiled back at Cloud, thinking this mess was maybe going to work out OK after all. But he needed that smell off of him.

"Want to shower today away?" Sephiroth asked, leaning in affectionately.

Cloud's eyes lit. The shower had been really fun last time. "Yeah, I do."

Sephiroth took Cloud's hand, kissed his fingers, and led him down the hallway.

"Hey Seph, I left Reno's door wide open with him all tied up. You think he'll be OK?"

Sephiroth laughed a little. Only Cloud could worry about his enemy so. "He'll be fine." He hugged Cloud, and then went to turn on the water.

ccccccccccccccccc

Reno glared at his PHS. Sooo close. He lifted his head up and stuck out his tongue. Almost. Of course if he reached it with his tongue he might short it out with his saliva. Maybe he could hold his tongue out and let it dry, yeah, that would probably work. But first he had to get it closer. He arched his back to lift his stomach and saw the device tilt towards him but get no closer. He inhaled until his ribcage hurt but no luck. The stupid rubbery bottom on the thing that was supposed to keep if from sliding off his dashboard was preventing it from sliding closer to his face. Eventually he worked up an arching-jerking-inhale pattern that bumped the thing forward. Closer, closer it came until it sat right between his collarbones. But now he couldn't reach it with his tongue, because his tongue didn't reach down that far at that angle. It would have to be his chin. All he needed was to push "2" to speed dial his partner Rude. And the send button. He brought his head up again, straining to get the force into the tiny button, finally succeeding and heard the little device dial. He let his head back to stretch out the cramp that had formed in his neck, then raised it again halfway to see the screen. He didn't like what he saw

_**spdl 3: Tseng**_

"Shit!" The force of the explicative caused the PHS to jump off to the side of his shoulder. Reno lifted his shoulder, trying to nudge it back into place so he could hit cancel. It slid down to the mattress by his armpit instead.

"What do you want, Reno?" Tseng's voice came from Reno's armpit.

"Uh, sorry boss, dialed you by mistake," Reno raised his voice to what he hoped would be enough for the speaker to pick up while trying to sound normal. It didn't work.

"Reno, what's wrong?" Tseng had switched from annoyed to alert-worried.

"Nothing!" Reno yelled, "I just need you to call Rude for me and have him come over to my apartment!"

There was a moment of silence before Tseng answered. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"NO! Tseng, babe, it's OK, I'm fine!" Reno yelled. But he was yelling in the room by himself. In his underwear. Tied to his bed.

"Fuck," he said softly to the ceiling.

cccccccc

Reno heard Tseng step softly onto his carpet, then stop. Reno knew Cloud had left the door open, he had heard him open it but not close it. Tseng would find that strange and have taken his piece out, looking around.

"Reno?" Came a soft call from the living room.

"In here."

Tseng stepped cautiously into the bedroom and managed not to react at all to the sight of his man tied up on the bed in his underwear.

"Are you alone?" Tseng asked, as if this were normal Turk business.

"Yes," Reno said, continuing to stare at the ceiling.

Tseng holstered his weapon and went back to shut the front door. Reno heard the dead bolt click home, and then Tseng came back with a kitchen chair that he casually sat on while he studied Reno's condition. Reno found the feeling remarkably like his annual review.

"How did this happen?" Tseng asked patiently.

"Amorous encounter. Got a little out of control."

"I see." Tseng's eyes lingered on Reno's own cuffs that held him to the bed. That was a nice touch.

"Was it the General or his young pup that did this to you?"

Now Reno looked at him. Damn Tseng.

"How'd you know?" Reno asked.

"The walls up in the tower are pretty good, but they don't keep out two Soldiers yelling at each other at the top of their lungs."

Reno sighed. Right, Tseng had the apartment next to Sephiroth. But at least he had caused some trouble in the 'he wraps me in his hair' paradise. Reno smirked a little at the thought.

"So which was it?" Tseng repeated.

"The pup," Reno said, grimacing. "He snapped my neck, tied me up, then Life spelled me."

Tseng stood up quickly and put both hands to the side of Reno's neck. If it had healed crooked they were going to have to surgically separate and straighten the vertebrae. His fingers felt each of the neck bones; each seemed in line with the next. He couldn't even tell where the break had been.

"Do you have any pain?" Tseng asked.

"No," Reno said, feeling deflated. What a crappy night this had been.

"It's my understanding that you were harassing Cloud to get at the General?"

"Yes."

"Why do want to play with him, Reno?" Tseng let a finger trace the edge of Reno's jaw. "What does he do for you?"

Reno looked sharply at his boss; this was definitely not the usual manner of questioning. But whatever Tseng's angle Reno couldn't answer because he had no answer for it. He didn't even think he liked Sephiroth. Sure he was attractive, but that didn't explain Reno's obsession with him.

"There's no shame, you know." Now Tseng's fingers were moving down Reno's chest. "In wanting this. In needing to bottom."

Reno jerked, trying to move away from the touch. He was NOT a bottom, no way. Just because Sephiroth always wound up on top, that wasn't by plan. He just had never gotten the upper hand yet with that bastard. Right?

Tseng continued his touch, his exploration, ignoring Reno's attempts to move away. It wasn't like Reno was going anywhere.

"Tseng?" Reno asked, unsure what to do, then remembering he couldn't _do_ anything, then- "Ohhhh!"

Tseng had run his hands over Reno's groin, letting his fingers lie along the length of Reno's shaft, feeling it move responsively under the fabric. He took advantage of Reno's parted lips to kiss him and let his tongue explore Reno's mouth. The redhead didn't bite, he didn't even flinch. Instead he parted his lips farther and pressured upwards. Tseng pulled away before the kiss felt finished, leaving Reno reaching up for him. He didn't do this to be cruel, but rather to observe Reno's reaction, to see if he was right about Reno's needs, to gauge their strength. The look in Reno's eyes was as he suspected, desperately revealing yearning and pain and reckless desire.

Tseng returned to his work, laying kisses down the midline of Reno's chest, onto his navel. Reno shook his head in confusion. This couldn't be happening, maybe it was a dream. Or a nightmare, he couldn't decide. Tseng stopped at the band to Reno's shorts and produced the small blade from his forearm holster. Nightmare, Reno decided. With two quick strokes Tseng had cut the fabric then yanked the garment free and sent it fluttering in a high arc to the middle of the floor. Then he applied his lips to Reno's now full erection. Dream, Reno decided, as expert oral manipulation lit his body on fire. But that too was taken away early.

"Fuck Tseng! What the hell?" Reno yelled and jerked frantically at the bonds on his hands and feet. The thrashing and swearing wasn't getting him anywhere but he indulged a little longer anyhow.

"Done?" Tseng asked. Reno glared at Tseng in all his insufferable coolness, but he laid still. Then his face relaxed into bliss as that warm, wet stimulation returned. He may have been stubborn, but Reno wasn't slow. He got that he was being rewarded for being calm. The next time Tseng stopped he didn't struggle. He looked into Tseng's dark eyes. Eyes that Reno always wondered how much of his soul they could read studied him, and for once Reno allowed the scrutiny. No smart comments, no deflection, no smirk. Just the intense plea that if Tseng actually was some sort of mind reader then let him read his mind now.

And it seemed he could. With one graceful finger Tseng opened the drawer to the nightstand and located a small bottle. He moved to the foot of the bed, lube in one hand and the small sharp blade in the other.

"I'm going to cut your feet free. No kicking."

"I won't kick," Reno said, remembering to keep his voice calm, using part of his professional training to even out his breath rather than slip into the impassioned impulses that often governed his personal affairs, or at least his sexual affairs.

Tseng did as he promised, and the little knife disappeared again. Then he slowly urged Reno's knees up, tilting them into position. Tseng crawled over the footboard and knelt at the bottom of the bed where he undid his belt, then his pants. Reno watched with anxious fascination as Tseng slipped his thumbs into his waistband and pushed down. At the sight of that slice of skin and the long firm organ partly visible under the hem of his white shirt Reno lost his composure and wrapped both legs around Tseng's waist. Then Reno flinched, tuning his face to the side. But he didn't get hit, or even reprimanded. Tseng waited. Reno unclamped his legs and slowly moved them back, receiving a thin smile and some rather nice stroking to his thighs. Then he felt the cool touch of the lube and the pad of one of Tseng's fingers circling his opening, touching lightly, caressing. Then a single finger, gentle and slow, entered him. Then another, opening and stretching slowly, massaging in small circles right on the party ball. Reno moaned, breathing heavily with eyes rolled back into his head, his chin lifted and lips parted.

The massaging fingers were removed and Reno's head jerked up, eyes flashing as he gave one yank to the cuffs on his wrist. Then he calmed himself and waited. It was easier this time, applying his Turk skills even though he was aroused and in a bedroom situation, if that's what one would call this. Tseng smiled at him again, encouraging. He applied more lube to his own erection and then pressed the tip to Reno's opening. Reno set his jaw and squeezed his eyes in anticipation of the pain, but none came. Only a slow, gentle pushing. He let his face relax and looked at Tseng, who was clearly concentrating and splitting his attention between what he was doing and reading Reno's facial expression. He pushed slowly, keeping the angle well lined up and sinking most of the way in before backing part way out to seek that firm, swollen spot so he could concentrate pressure from his tip there. He barely had to work at all for this; Reno's head flew back as soon as he was on it. He kept his motions small in order to massage from the front edge of the spot to the back. Reno's left hand, restrained by the cuff, twitched several times, and Tseng noted and filed away in his mind that Reno must be a left handed masturbator. The twitching probably indicated he wanted some penile stimulation, and Tseng wanted to give it to him, but he needed to check one more thing first. He continued the short massages as Reno's breathing increased, accompanied by small cries on each exhale. Then the white fluid was spurting from that slotted opening in Reno's organ, but cry that accompanied it was more frustrated agony than relief. Tseng recognized this, the gland had been milked but without orgasm, an incomplete climax. If he was quick he could rectify this for Reno, but he wasn't quick enough. Even as he was moving to grasp Reno the redhead's vocalizations changed, his fingers clasped into fists and his body jerked stiffened as a bright red flush moved quickly up his chest and covered his neck. Then Reno lay back with a relieved moan and shut his eyes, a lax smile on his face.

Tseng stared at him, astounded. That was it then, full climax off of anal stimulation alone. Tseng had read about it but never seen it before. No wonder Reno sought this out, even though he thought he shouldn't have it or shouldn't enjoy it. The whole idea almost sent Tseng over the edge, and he had to struggle to lock his mind back down into this normal controlled state. He wanted to think, to make his decision rationally since he had a choice here to finish himself or pull out and will himself back down. Which he should do depended on Reno. He had a pretty good idea what was wrong with his Turk. For all their sophisticated background investigation, they never learned everything about Turk candidates. Personal things, things that happed behind closed doors in homes, in families, those were not so easily ferreted out. He knew there were many things that Reno hadn't told them. You don't wind up a street punk from having a kind upbringing.

But the experts disagreed on the best track for sexual rehabilitation. Some said the new and concerned lover (that would be him) should wait and not take their pleasure, only let the one recovering from the abuse receive for awhile. Others said it was better to join in. Tseng opted to join in. He had started this on Reno's familiar ground with Tseng in complete control, but his goal was to move them to more equal footing, and keeping himself distant and controlled wasn't going to achieve that. So Tseng thrust. There was no danger of hurting Reno now, he was completely relaxed, and soon Tseng let himself go and drifted into complete nothingness, Reno's name escaping his lips. He had to shut his eyes and breathe for a minute, and when he opened them Reno was staring at him, wide eyed in wonder. Tseng stared back, thinking how young Reno looked. He was young, actually, but normally it didn't show. Smart alack, streetwise smirking always made him look older, jaded. Tseng withdrew and as Reno brought his legs back down he fished his own handcuff key out of his jacket. It would unlock Reno's cuffs as well. He reached up and undid one cuff, then the other, and when he sat back up Reno's hands flew at him. Tseng caught one, blocked the other before catching that wrist as well. This wasn't completely unexpected, and once caught Reno stopped fighting. Tseng pressed him down and kissed him, this time keeping the kiss until Reno felt good and finished.

"I don't know who taught you that this had to hurt," Tseng said, "Or that you had to be forced, but we are going to re-write every line of that if it takes me the rest of my life."

Reno gave him another one of those confused looks that might make a man think there was still some innocence left in him, and then his hands went back up. Tseng tensed before he realized it wasn't an attack. Reno had reached behind his head for some other reason. He was pulling at his ponytail. Tseng reached around hand helped Reno remove the tie. Then Reno was running his hands through Tseng's shoulder length jet black hair with an almost desperate fervor.

"You ever think about growing this?" Reno asked.

Tseng was confused by the question. He actually never gave his hair that much thought. "Would you like me to?"

Reno nodded.

"Then I will. For you."

Reno snorted a laugh, that cynical look returning. "Why would you do that, you don't love me."

"Reno," Tseng said surprised, "Who said I don't love you?"

"Oh, let's see, Elena, Rod, Cisnei, Rude..."

Tseng only smiled. "I love all my Turks, Reno."

"Even your biggest pain in the ass?"

"Especially my biggest pain in the ass."

Tseng kissed Reno, slowly, gently, ignoring the message alert that beeped on his PHS. Reno reached up and undid Tseng's necktie which was still bizarrely and insultingly around Tseng's neck, and both men worked to remove his coat, shirt, pants, everything. Now with both of them completely nude Tseng lifted the covers and encouraged Reno to crawl underneath with him. Reno shifted and stretched and put his whole body next to Tseng while he got caressed and had arms wrapped around him. He could never get this from...

A dark mood swept over him at the thought. Something was really wrong with him if he could think of Sephiroth right now.

"I don't know why he hates me so much," Reno said quietly.

Tseng sighed. He was disappointed to see Reno's fixation return to the General, but these things took time. Maybe some information would help; Turks lived and died by information. And maybe Reno needed the closure.

"Sephiroth hates you because you're a Turk," Tseng said.

"Yeah, I know a lot of people don't like us, but his seems so... personal."

Tseng took a deep breath. "During the war Soldier was different. They weren't so rigidly organized, and there were a lot more of them, men kicked just up to glimmer level and sent to the front. We used to, I used to, at the request of the lab and approval of the company, take a few every now and then to be used for experimentation.

It was easy enough, the front was chaotic, Soldiers were dying by the droves and men disappeared all the time. I don't know how Sephiroth found out. Maybe we were careless. Maybe he recognized what remained of one of them when he was down in the lab himself – he's down there quite a lot. Whatever the case he went ballistic. He had just made captain and there had been this enormous publicity piece on him, photos, interviews, newpaper articles, everything. His face, his magnetic image and persona, was everywhere. ShinRa had arranged the whole thing because popularity for the war was as an all time low and they thought the publicity would help. And it did. Sephiroth used his new found popularity and the broad based support he had garnered in Soldier as leverage against ShinRa. Held the whole war effort hostage. Threatened to bring the army down our throats. ShinRa cut a deal with him, and it's the truce we live under today."

"ShinRa cut a deal?" Reno asked, shocked. That old stingy bastard never gave into anything.

"Well Sephiroth was pacified easily enough. He only wanted the one thing, no more Soldiers put into the labs. And it wasn't like Turks couldn't provide subjects from other sources."

"Right, prisoners." Then Reno thought. "I've heard Sephiroth never takes prisoners, is this why?"

"Don't be getting any of romantic ideas about it. We don't know why he doesn't take prisoners. I suspect it's his bloodthirsty nature and not that he thinks he's doing them a favor, that death is better than going to the labs. Although I guess he'd know."

Reno shuddered.

"Anyway everything works OK now, Sephiroth mostly behaves, ShinRa is pleased with him and he seems to like his job. He's changed Soldier into a much more controlled and efficient organization. In fact it would be almost impossible to nab a Soldier now, they know immediately when one disappears and they turn all of their energy until that man, or his body, is found. ShinRa likes it, but..."

"They're more dangerous this way," Reno said.

"Yes. I have no desire for a war with Soldier, yet Soldier war veterans, guys who personally remember what the General did for them, have been pouring into Midgar all day from every quarter. I suspect Turk is their target."

Reno winced. "I guess I kind of threatened his uke. Implied he could turn up dead."

"Hmm mmm. That kid tells Sephiroth everything, I'm sure he told him about this. His successful attack on you, odd as it was, may have diffused the situation."

Tseng rolled over and with one long arm dug his PHS out of his coat on the floor. His thumb pushed buttons to access his messages. He had one from Rude and Elena, both saying Soldiers were leaving Midgar to return to their regular bases. He punched in a general message for his people to stand down. Reno heard his own PHS, somewhere on the floor, beep with the message.

"Sorry boss," Reno said. Slowly his mind clarified on what he had done. He had put every Turk in mortal danger, a far bigger screw up than even he had ever committed. And here Tseng was holding him in bed, looking at him kindly. "Why aren't you punishing me?"

"Reno, this transgression is so serious I think I have only two choices. I can either kill you or try to fix the problem. I don't want to lose you; you're too fine a Turk. I want to instead make sure this problem doesn't occur again. For the time being you don't talk to either the General or Cloud. You don't give them dirty looks, you walk on the other side of the street if that's what it takes. In fact I don't want either of them to lay eyes on you for awhile. This should be easy for a man of your talents. And Reno," Tseng tilted the redhead's chin to make him hold his eyes, "From now on you take what you need from me. And you can ask for it when you need it, because it's part of what's rightfully yours."

Tseng looked at Reno, sympathetic and affectionate. He now understood how much effort Reno had been expending to keep up his own self denial, selecting a partner who was almost certain to best him in a fight just so he could get what he craved without having to admit to himself that it was what he wanted. It would take a while for Reno to get to the point of simply asking for that.

"Well, Tseng babe, I could use some right now," Reno said.

Or not, Tseng amended.

**A/N: Yes, I know Verdot should be the Turk commander during roughly this time frame, but I want to play with Tseng so I have him there a bit early.**

**I'm amused with the idea of Tseng taking some sexual psychology classes just to deal with his Turks, then always having two or three at a time under his "rehabilitation" program. He'd be very busy.**


	12. Snapshot 5 Sickness

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: A few language comments on the last chapter. I have corrected masterbater to masturbator because I was embarrassed. Turns our masturbator is a real word, that surprised me. I could find no euphemisms on the internet for the prostate gland. How odd. I made up the term party ball. I love it. I may use it again some time. And it looks like I inadvertently invented a new spell - Life 3. One up from Life 2, I guess. Now, for some fluff.**

"Cloud, you're home early." Sephiroth had just come in himself and was surprised. Cloud wasn't scheduled to be done until nine tonight.

"Niven sent me home," Cloud said.

Now Sephiroth detected there was something amiss with Cloud. He was puffy and pale and his voice ragged.

"Cloud, are you… sick?" Sephiroth stepped over and stared at Cloud like he was an exotic animal.

Cloud wrestled one arm out from under the soft blue blanket and hit a button on the remote to turn off the TV. He had been dozing more than watching some old movie.

"Yes," he said, "I am sick."

Sephiroth put a hand to Cloud's face. "Your temperature is not correct," he announced, voice deliberately flat to hide his alarm.

"Well, bit of a fever I guess. I took some aspirins but you know they don't do much with all this mako. Excuse me, I've got some... digestive distress." Cloud stumbled towards the bathroom, trailing the blue blanket behind him.

Sephiroth picked up his PHS and called major Niven, wondering if the whole squad was sick, maybe Medical was full, was that why Cloud had been sent here instead of there? He got Niven's voice mail, hung up, and speed dialed Zack.

Cccccccccccc

Zack arrived in less than ten minutes, after Cloud had crawled into bed.

"So, Cloudy boy's got the flu?" Zack asked.

Sephiroth frowned. Cloud didn't say what he had. Flu. That sounded familiar. His men sometimes complained about the Flu, performed badly when they were suffering from it, sometimes they even didn't report for duty because of it.

"Flu is an illness?" Sephiroth asked.

"Uh, yeah, what did you think it was?"

"I thought it was a euphemism for hung over."

Zack blinked at his commander. Was it possible the man could have gone this long confused about what flu was?

"Well, sometimes we say "bar-flu", and yeah, that means hung over. But the term bar-flu comes because the symptoms are kind of similar. Flu is a virus thing."

"Cloud has a fever," Sephiroth said. As far as he knew fever was not a symptom of hangover. Maybe it wasn't a symptom of flu either. Maybe Cloud had something worse.

"Yeah, fever is normal." Zack looked at his General thoughtfully. He had already assured him on the phone that they were not in the grip of some end of the world epidemic. A few guys sick was all. But Sephiroth was still worried.

"Seph, what's going on in that head of yours?"

"During the third year of the war we lost a lot of men to a fever."

Zack scanned his military history, sometimes he wished he'd gone through the damn war just so he would be on the same page of these war vets. But he was proud that Sephiroth chose to consult with him despite that. He remembered what he was thinking- the Wutai Fever.

"Oh, no, Seph, that was a regional epidemic. I'm sure we're not having some bizarre hemorrhaging fever. It's just normal flu, you know, lie in bed a few days, have mom feed you soup…" Zack stopped, remembering too late that Sephiroth never had anything like that. In fact he never remembered Sephiroth with so much as a sniffle.

"Seph, do you get sick?"

"No. My core temperature is a few degrees higher than normal and the viruses that thrive at human temperatures can't tolerate it. I got sick from a chocobo once. It was horrible until I made myself rise up a few more degrees."

"OK," Zack said slowly to give himself time to process. Sephiroth was a different temperature?

"Look, Cloud's body is just doing the same trick, raising the temperature up a bit to help kill the virus. Except unlike you when our bodies do that we feel really crappy and things don't work very well. And we can't actually do it on command." Zack tried to sound casual rather than shocked. Although he was getting so used to these surprises from his friend that "shock" was becoming impossible.

Sephiroth continued to look anxious. Zack sighed. This was Cloud after all; the man was going to be anxious.

"Can I take a look at him?" Zack asked.

Sephiroth seemed pleased at this and led Zack to the bedroom, where bits of blonde hair were visible sticking up from the top of the comforter. Both Soldiers stepped silently in, and Cloud stirred as Zack sunk his weight on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, Cloud," Zack said, brushing the hair out of Cloud's face.

Cloud looked up, confused. "What are you doing here?" he croaked.

"Our brave commander," Zack said, smiling, "Is about having a nervous breakdown because you're a little sick."

Cloud raised his head a little to look at Sephiroth, then let it drop back down. Zack ran his hand over Cloud's forehead. It was a little warm, but nothing too alarming.

"You nauseous?" Zack asked.

"Yeah."

"Head hurts? Feel achy? Got the shits?"

"Yes, yes, and yes. Kind of yellow."

Zack kissed Cloud on the forehead despite the fact he knew Cloud was germy as hell. Zack never worried about that sort of thing; he hardly ever got sick.

"It's the same thing that's going around," Zack said. "Some guys are already back to work from it. Two or three days and he'll get over it."

"Is every man going to get sick?" Sephiroth asked.

"Usually not, some of it's luck, some of it's being careful. Wash your hands and all that. But look, just make sure he rests, drinks plenty of fluids. Give him soup when he can handle it."

Sephiroth nodded, he would call his caterer and have soups sent up. His caterer, doubly motivated by the extra pay and terror of ShinRa, had learned to be available at night.

Zack went into the bathroom to wet a wash cloth and nearly stopped in his tracks by the sight of the large exotic room. His eyes roved enviously over the jetted tub, then he picked one clean, folded cloth off an immaculate counter and soaked it with cold water and rang it out. He stepped back to Cloud.

"Here buddy, this will make your head feel better. It's cool, but keep the rest of you warm. You can let your bedwarmer in with you."

"No," Cloud protested, forgetting in his sickness induced confusion that the bed he was in belonged to Sephiroth and so he was effectively kicking the owner out to the guest room. "I don't want to make him sick."

Sephiroth sat down next to Cloud and tried his hand at adjusting the cool cloth.

"It's OK, Cloud, I can't get sick."

"Yeah, he's too hot," said Zack.

Cloud frowned but his brain wasn't quite up to puzzling that one out.

"Well you are pretty hot," he said to Sephiroth. Sephiroth smiled.

"OK, I'm going now." Zack said, rolling his eyes and letting himself out.

ccccccccccccc

After a couple days Cloud was much better, almost normal, and Sephiroth had ceased his fretting enough to concentrate on work. He needed to review some mission plans with Zack, but the young Soldier hadn't shown up yet. His phone rang and the little screen identified it as ZackHome.

"Why aren't you here?" Sephiroth answered as way of greeting.

"I'm sick," came Zack's voice but with a familiar sounding croak. Sephiroth smiled a little; he knew what to do. He could go over there and make Zack drink fluids. Use the cold cloth. Call his caterer and order soup. Then when Zack was better he could smack him upside the head for letting himself get sick.

** A/N: My dogs are a few degrees warmer than me, that's why they don't get my colds. And why they feel so warm and cozy when you cuddle up to them. Pigs however can share flu with humans, and with birds. This is why we get these new and sometimes pandemic flus from places in the world where it's common to keep ducks and pigs on the same farm. The pig can catch a human virus and a bird virus at the same time where they mingle and make a new wonderful virus. It's called "genetic reassortment" where viruses get together and swap some genes. **


	13. Snapshot 6 Need

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

Major Niven limped into the officer's room in mission prep and began to strip off mud streaked gear. The men in the general locker room area were quiet, somber, taking care not to make any noise that might worsen the temper of their commander. The morning's mission had been a frustrating debacle. What should have been an hour operation at the edge of the city to handle some monster intrusion had been three hours of errors, teamwork lapses, poor responses, and bad weapon handling. All in the pouring rain. They had three injuries and most of the beasts had slipped away, no doubt to re-group and find their way into the city at some other location later. Niven showered, dressed, and passed through his troops, all who hung their heads as he went by.

Before heading to the officer's mess he stopped at his office to check messages. And to even out his mood. He could scarcely believe how poorly his prized A Squad had performed; one would think he hadn't trained them at all. But this happened sometimes, one or two men are off their game for some reason and the rest of them catch it. Like a flu. But Shiva, usually he had at least one guy who could hold it together and break up the pattern. Even Strife had let him down today, and he had been pretty reliable. Stable. Good officer material. Being the squad navigator naturally caused the men to look to Cloud for direction in a broader sense, and he was stepping up to that quite naturally. But now that he thought about it Cloud had been off for the last few days, even making a few navigation errors. Small ones, but still... He drummed his fingers on his desk thoughtfully and his eyes fell onto the latest stat report for his men. He dug through the folder and pulled out Cloud's report. Everything looked good, blood count and nutrient level, no drugs in his urine. But on page two he saw Cloud's mako level count. It had dropped a few points to 168. Hardly consequential, especially given Strife's erratic looking chart. He had a sharp initial rise, then an odd looking upward lilt around 100. That was first glimmer, and coincidental with Strife's birthday. Maybe celebrating or something. Then there was a significant sag last summer, Niven knew what that was from, the time he had separated from the General. After that the data was relatively smooth and normal, the level increasing ever more slowly towards its limit. Cloud looked like he was going to top out pretty high, certainly over 200. But why this small drop now?

Niven reviewed the last few weeks in his mind as he absently raked his fingers through thick, bristly hair. This had been a busy month. There had been a crisis in Wutai that took the General away for two weeks, then the Tsunami disaster in Mideel. Niven's squads had been sent to help on that one, brutal long hours doing everything imaginable from rescue to clearing out rubble to building emergency structures to burying the dead. Soldiers worked faster than machines in dangerous environments like that, and ShinRa loved this type of PR. Niven wouldn't be surprised to find out ShinRa arranged things like natural disasters just to keep them the busy heroes. While they were playing Hero the wild fire raging to the west had started to threaten a couple of small towns and more Soldiers had to be sent for clearing and digging of firebreaks. To top it off Avalanche had taken advantage of Soldier preoccupation to attack bases at Corel and Junon.

When things finally calmed down everyone had been given a few days rest, except... the General. It was budget review time. Niven had almost forgotten about it, and for that he sent a little grateful prayer to Zack Fair. This time of year had gotten so much easier for him since the General had appointed Zack as his Aide. Zack was good at supporting all the political needs of Soldier, being the social animal that he was. For the past week both he and Sephiroth would be embroiled in heated meetings and bargaining with other departments. Niven pulled up the General's schedule on his computer, the light from the screen reflecting off ice-blue eyes so brilliantly enhanced by mako that they might have been mirrors. The General's schedule was a blaze of red- already scheduled blocks. He pulled up Cloud's schedule. Also quite red. He reduced the transparency of one window and pulled it over the other. Both had some white blocks here and there in the middle of the day, but none overlapped. Sephiroth's schedule even encroached into the late night. It was possible Cloud hadn't laid eyes on Sephiroth for weeks, least not awake, let alone had a private moment with the man. And this would go on for another week at least.

His Soldiers getting mako injections had a regular schedule and were given the time needed to do that. Cloud didn't get that; he had to get his mako on his own time, and the General's. Niven didn't want to insert himself in this matter, but on the other hand Cloud had no control over his work schedule. Niven controlled Cloud's work schedule. He began pulling red blocks around.

ccccccccc

Cloud had lunch with his squad in the main cafeteria although most of them stared at their food with little talking among their group. After lunch they would disperse to various Soldier areas to... clean. Clean floors, clean walls, gear, weapons, even windows. Soldier training areas had no cleaning crew because cleaning was used as punishment. There were always enough guys screwing up to take care of it.

Cloud looked up from playing with his food and sadly watched Sephiroth pass only ten yards from his table as he left the officer's mess. He and Zack walked quickly, both heads bent together over a folder and talking quietly. Neither so much as glanced up at him.

Cloud sighed. He knew Sephiroth was busy, and that the budget was important. If they didn't get their funding they could be short materia, weapons, armor, food, everything. But he didn't think it would take up all the General's time, even his nights. Sephiroth had come home a few times, at two or three in the morning, slept a few hours, and left early. Other nights he hadn't come home at all, and Cloud had been feeling more than a little neglected. And not just emotionally. He could hardly get through his weight routine without his eyes straying all over his teammates. And yesterday he'd lost focus and missed a turn during a mission because one of the Second Classes had given him a friendly but somewhat roguish smile. And today, well hell he was just plain distracted. It was one thing to be away on assignment, he could kind of shut that part of himself down. But to keep glimpsing Sephiroth every day without being able to be near him was putting Cloud in a definite state of frustration.

Cloud's PHS gave a little beep as he bussed his tray and he saw from the small display that he had a text. Well it certainly wasn't from Sephiroth. He clicked to read and saw it was from Major Niven. Cloud stared at the little device in shock. Niven had actually sent him a text? He opened the message:

Please check your new schedule. You might want to cross reference it with the General's.

Cloud laughed, every word was completely spelled out. At Niven's texting speed the message must have taken him ten minutes. Somebody needed to teach that guy to use some abbreviations. Cloud opened his schedule. It was quite different now, in fact he was off duty the whole afternoon. That was a mystery, and the only clue was that it had something to do with Sephiroth's schedule. But his PHS only had one calendar: his. He needed a computer to pull up Sephiroth's, and he decided to just slip up to Zack's office and use his. That was close by and he was in Zack's office all the time anyway.

What Cloud was surprised to find in Zack's office was Zack. Zack looked up and beamed at him, and Cloud plopped down into his regular chair.

"Not in some meeting?" Cloud asked.

"Nah, not for the next couple hours, until the big one at 3:00."

Cloud's ears prickled at the sound of "couple hours." But that didn't make Sephiroth available.

"Big one? I suppose you guys are prepping, then."

"Not really," Zack said, "We've been ready for awhile; Seph's just fussing because it's the earflap one."

Cloud raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"You know those earflaps Seph has in his ear canals, the things that kept him from going down in a heap on New Years?"

Now Cloud knew what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah, he said they're more like thick lumps that come up and make a plug." Cloud thought that 'Earflaps' was probably a Zackism.

"Well we're trying to get them for everybody." Zack said. He launched a small piece of paper he'd been folding into a hard compact shape at Cloud's head. Cloud caught it.

"How?"

"Dunno, something about injecting special cells in the area that grow the new structure. I know they don't have all the bugs worked out yet, so there's some research involved. I hope we don't all wind up growing a third ear or something."

Cloud shook his head in amazement. The whole idea was disturbing, but so was the fact that they could be brought to their knees by something as simple to fabricate as sound. So far their solution had been to issue earplugs and extra drills on hand signals.

"It's expensive," Zack continued. "And since the Research Department wants money too Seph and Hojo are actually working together on this one to try and convince management it's worth the cost. And I gotta tell you, that's a sight. Seph looks like he might kill Hojo at any moment. I think that's one reason he's so wound up about it."

Cloud looked at his watch, it was already 1:45. He snapped the hard paper projectile back at Zack and watched him catch it with those First Class reflexes, moving his hand so fast that even Cloud's enhanced vision could barely see it. Zack smiled and Cloud found him momentarily fixed in place by his friend's eyes, the warmth of that trademark smile spreading through him. Cloud was suddenly hyper aware of the smells particular to Zack's office, coffee, weapon oil, a spicy deodorant or aftershave that Zack always used, and the smell of Zack's skin, clean, masculine. The warmth from that smile transfigured into a heat that spread up to his face and the other direction.

"Gotta run," Cloud said abruptly, and took off for the tower leaving Zack Fair alone and mildly confused.

cccccccccccc

Sephiroth reviewed his notes on 'Proposal for Organic Audio Dampening Enhancement for SOLDIER'. He'd been through this again and again, but he was having trouble concentrating. The trouble was Hojo. Normally he liked Budget Reviews, compared to the normal slew of meetings these were damn exciting. They were like warfare, they needed planning and maneuvering and bold execution. There was only so much money to go around and that made instant enemies for him of the competing departments. His favorite were the aggressive, verbally combative reviews that included Turks. As an opponent Commander Tseng was the most difficult and therefore enticing, and the fact that he reveled in every dollar he gained at the expense of Turks didn't hurt either.

But this business of teaming up with Hojo, maybe that had been a mistake. He was tense, and hostile towards his ally. Both made for poor presentation on his part.

Sephiroth heard a knock on his door, and unbelievably it opened before he spoke. His scowl evaporated when he saw the young man who came in. His young man. Cloud.

"Cloud," he said, staring rather stupidly at his visitor. Sephiroth came around his desk to stand near Cloud and put his fingertips lightly to Cloud's cheek. Something moved inside his head that felt heavy and slow, like gears that had been too long stagnant. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen Cloud, awake that was. Two nights ago he had stared at him for several minutes in the pre-dawn darkness. But Cloud had been asleep, and he hadn't wanted to wake him. It occurred to him that he had no idea what was happening in Cloud's life, how he was doing. The last thing he could remember was that he had assigned Cloud's unit to the Tsunami and that Cloud had returned exhausted but unharmed.

"Is everything OK?" Sephiroth asked, unable to think of something else.

"I need you," Cloud said simply.

"For?"

Cloud blinked, he'd never seen Sephiroth slow to catch on before.

"I just need you," Cloud repeated. He laid his hand on Sephiroth's neck and let it trail down his broad chest. The big leather coat lay over the back of the desk chair and Sephiroth had one of those high necked Soldier ribbed shirts on. Sleeveless. Cloud let his hand wander over one bare shoulder and felt his pulse quicken.

Finally Sephiroth was on the same page as Cloud and reached around him to shut the door.

"Cloud, baby, I'm sorry." Sephiroth put a hand on each side of Cloud's face and kissed him. "I'll try to get home early tonight, but I have to get this one done today and I don't know how long it'll take."

"I know," Cloud said, "It's OK, I understand." For one moment he felt again the pain in his ears, his head, from the sound weapon. "You have to do this, it's important. It's for me too. I just thought..." Cloud dropped his pack and rummaged around, retrieving a small bottle "Maybe I could get a quickie."

Sephiroth's eyebrows shot up. In his office? Actually it wasn't the first time he'd thought about it. He stole a glance at his big desk.

"I think I can manage that," Sephiroth said, smiling. He kissed Cloud again, passionately this time, letting his hands go right to the shirt untucking and belt unbuckling part. He took a moment to enjoy the feel of Cloud's skin under his hands and felt Cloud doing the same to him. Sephiroth snaked a hand down the front of Cloud's pants and found him not only hard but already leaking a drop. Sephiroth inhaled sharply, and wondered what he had been thinking all these weeks. No budget meeting was worth missing this. He felt Cloud reach down and give his shaft a squeeze, and it was almost too much.

"Turn around," Sephiroth ordered, and then recklessly swept all his papers and folders to the side of his desk. Some of them spilled onto the floor. "Hands on my desk."

Cloud complied, his back to the General, and felt his fatigues pulled roughly off his hips. He noticed Sephiroth take a second look, probably at the fact that he had no underwear. Cloud had taken them off when he was up at the apartment, wanting as little in the way as possible for this. Cloud handed the bottle up over his shoulder and returned his hand to the polished wooden surface, palm flat, fingers spread for stability. He sighed when he felt the cool fluid touch him, he really was going to get this. He wasn't dreaming this time or having one of those distracting fantasies during work. And then gently, carefully, long narrow fingers slipped in, moved, massaged. Cloud's erection throbbed with a hot ache, he moved one hand from the desk top to answer that ache.

"Let me," a silken voice, inches from his ear, startled him. His hand was guided back to the desk and strong fingers gripped him, stilling one ache but adding another, a need, an urgency. Then quite suddenly his body was filled, he felt it in his chest, he felt it in a catching of his throat, and wonderful slick coolness was added to the grip surrounding his swollen organ.

Cloud's breathing quickened, his heart pounded and throbbed as if it wanted to fly free, and then he was jerking, spilling himself in powerful spurts that hit and splattered on the beautiful wood surface. He was almost limp by the time he felt Sephiroth finish, thrusting and hitting his cheeks with his hips. For a moment they both collapsed, Cloud's locked elbows easily supporting them both.

"Thank-you," Cloud whispered.

Sephiroth laughed. "And he thanks me," he said, incredulity clear in his voice. He kissed the back of Cloud's neck and slid gently away from him. Desk tissues handled the job of cleaning his desk off and Sephiroth noticed as he moved his limbs how relaxed his body was. He hadn't known how tense he had become. His mind was at ease as well and clearer. He ran his hand over Cloud's hair as the young man buttoned up.

"Is your level sagging?" Sephiroth asked.

"I don't know," Cloud said, "But... probably."

Sephiroth smiled. Cloud hadn't even been thinking of his level when he came in here.

"I'd rather you be on your stomach for awhile. You're going to lose it by the time you get up the tower."

"Oh," said Cloud. "I have my blanket. I thought, you know, you might want the floor."

Sephiroth eyed his floor. It was clean, but hard. Not that hard floors bothered young Soldiers, they were used to the hard ground often as not.

"Will you lie down for an hour? I promise to make this up to you after the budget is done, but until then..."

"That's fine," Cloud said. "Niven moved my schedule around so I'm off until this evening."

"Really?" Sephiroth thought maybe he should do something nice for the Major next week. But it would have to be subtle; Niven was uncomfortable with favors.

Cloud had gotten out his blue blanket and spread it on the floor. Sephiroth sat down with him as he lay on it. He began methodically covering the side of Cloud's face with small kisses.

"Don't you have to go?" Cloud asked, laughing a little.

"Yes," Sephiroth said, kissing cloud once more on the mouth, then managed to find his folder on his ruin of a desk and left, remembering to douse the lights for Cloud and locking the door behind him.

Cloud dozed for awhile, maybe forty minutes. He shared that trait with all Soldiers, the one they had acquired as cadets and never lost. He could sleep anywhere, at anytime, on hard or lumpy surfaces and in all manner of uncomfortable positions. When he woke he lay still for awhile, letting his eyes rove around Sephiroth's office. There was plenty of light from the window, even muted by the shade. The room looked soft, private. An office asleep while its owner was away. The walls were covered with medals and weapons. Cloud couldn't believe that Sephiroth had hung those medals, he thought probably the company wanted them there. The weapons he could believe. It shared that coffee and oil smell of Zack's office, the oil for the oilstones they both used to sharpen blades. But here Sephiroth's particular scent reined. Cloud wondered how he got along before this sense was enhanced. He'd missed out on so much. Sure some of it was terrible, foot odor wasn't so good, and sometimes the cafeteria was horrendous. But if ever there was something rotten in the food every Soldier in the place had the sense to avoid eating it. And so many smells brought him euphoric feelings. Like Sephiroth's. The general population didn't know what it was missing.

The card reader beeped and Cloud looked to the door, expecting Sephiroth back early from his meeting. But it was Zack who came through. He went straight to the desk, not bothering to flick on the lights.

"Bondara, Seph, what happened to you desk?" Zack said to himself, using one of the Gongagan curse words that Cloud rarely heard from him. As he shuffled though items on the desk Zack continued with a string of what must have been other Gongagan profanities that Cloud had never heard. Gongaga may have been in the country but it was clearly a much more colorful place than Nibelheim ever thought of being.

Zack had never seen his commander's desk in such a state. The guy was pathologically organized. And there was a strong new scent – semen. He smiled a little, at least Seph had found some way to burn off some of that anxiety. As far as Zack was concerned that's why offices had doors in the first place. He spied the folder he was looking for, half falling off the far edge.

"Aha!" he yelled, snagged the folder, turned, and then yelped in surprise as saw Cloud on the floor watching him. A hand had already flown up behind his head, reaching for the handle of a Buster sword that wasn't there.

"Gaia, Cloud, about give me a heart attack!"

Cloud smiled mischievously and brought his face out a bit from his folded arms that had been serving as a pillow. Zack looked Cloud up and down. He was on his stomach, and Zack knew what that meant even if he never donated. This explained the semen scent, and probably the disarray of the desk.

"Nice work, Cloud," Zack said, refusing to be uncomfortable in any way. "The General was on the money in there, every question or concern he had an answer for, he was relaxed and looked like he was totally willing and able to work with the research department, hell he even made Hojo look good. And that aint easy. We're getting the earflaps."

"Good," Cloud said, smiling.

Zack smiled back, then looked at Cloud's prone form again.

"Gotta get Seph a couch in here," he said, almost to himself, and left.


	14. Forbinde

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Sorry about the laggardly updating. Life has gotten a bit busy (I know, the number one excuse) and this bit here is necessary but hard for me to write (the number two excuse). At least I can get you started. **

"Welcome home." Cloud smiled from the couch, flicking off the TV as Sephiroth came in, tired, laden with gear.

The General had been on one of his frequent trips to Wutai, only three days this time, but Cloud studied him, the curves of his jaw, his lips. He thought about that old adage about absence making the heart grow fonder. It was certainly true for Cloud, even if he did enjoy having the place to himself now and again. But right now he couldn't be happier to see Sephiroth. Even if he was a bit nervous.

"Did you have a good few days?" Sephiroth called from the laundry room where he unloaded his bag.

"Yeah," Cloud said. "Fine." He picked up the folded printouts from the coffee table, fidgeted with them, straightened out a bent corner, and put them back down.

Sephiroth came over to the couch to kiss Cloud, then sat down, wrapping Cloud in his arms.

"Miss me?" he asked, kissing Cloud on the ear, neck, face.

Cloud fidgeted. "Don't you want to shower?" Cloud cringed inside; he knew he was procrastinating.

"Why, do I smell?" Sephiroth asked, pulling the collar of his shirt away and attempting to smell himself.

Cloud frowned thoughtfully. "No. Never, actually. Why is that?"

"Don't know," Sephiroth said, far more interested in Cloud's skin than his own at the moment. Cloud fidgeted again. This time Sephiroth took the hint.

"Something on your mind, Cloud?"

"Yeah, actually, I wanted to talk with you about something."

Sephiroth let himself sink into the couch. When Cloud broached a subject in this way the conversations were often difficult ones. But never dull.

"Um," Cloud stopped, he didn't actually know how to start. Maybe he should have practiced. He snatched up the printouts for some help and Sephiroth's eyebrows went up. This one was going to be show and tell, something Cloud had printed from the infoweb by the looks of it.

"I don't know if you've heard of a Forbinde?" Cloud asked

Sephiroth was even more surprised by this direction, but held his face neutral.

"It's a ceremony," Cloud continued, unfolding his printouts that showed the traditional format and requirement. "For men, or, um, anyone actually that doesn't fit the norm. It's not recognized in all regions but in most of the main continental areas. It's actually really old, Marcus and Nathan have done it, and Thom said Gavin had with Kiho..."

"Cloud, are you asking me to marry you?"

"Yeah," Cloud blinked, then flushed because Sephiroth had that blank look on his face. "I guess. I understand if you don't want to answer right away, I just want you to, you know, think about it-."

Then Cloud was rolled over, flipped down onto the couch so that he was face up underneath them both. Sephiroth was grinning as broad as he'd ever seen him.

"Yes, Cloud," he said, kissing Cloud repeatedly all over his face. "A thousand times yes. I would have asked you, but you are so young."

Cloud frowned. "I'll be nineteen," he protested.

"Next year," Sephiroth said. They had in fact just passed Cloud's eighteenth birthday.

"I'll tell you what, we can do a Binde when you're nineteen. Provided you still want me."

Cloud rolled his eyes.

"It will give us time to arrange things," Sephiroth said, "If I recall it's quite a complicated affair."

"Kind of," Cloud said, wriggling upright so he could spread the sheets in front of them on the coffee table. Sephiroth straddled Cloud from behind, wrapped his arms around the excited young man, and looked over his shoulder.

"We need to pick a meaningful location," Cloud said, "One that we both feel some sort of spiritual connection to, where we feel close to the planet. And have time off to spend at least a week there. We have to have witnesses."

"Zack," they both said at the same time, and grinned at one another.

"I want Gavin," Sephiroth said.

"I want Thom. And Anthony."

"I may need to have the whole First Class there."

"We'll need to feed them."

Sephiroth looked at Cloud, waiting. Finally he said it. "Family?"

Cloud nodded, but kept his eyes down on the table. "Just my mother, really. I haven't, actually, told her about you. Us."

Sephiroth raised his eyebrows. He knew Cloud spoke to his mother on the phone at least every other week. How did Cloud manage to talk about his life at all without including him?

"You never mentioned me?" Sephiroth asked, feeling something hard and black and unpleasant in the bottom of his stomach, although unsure why.

"Well, yeah, I talk about you all the time, I just never... explained that you were a lover and not just a friend."

"Why?"

"Seph, she's my mother."

This apparently did nothing to aid Sephiroth's understanding. Cloud sighed, this type of statement never did. It was so easy to forget momentarily that Sephiroth had no experience and little understanding of family dynamics. Not because Sephiroth ever gave the impression otherwise, more because it was such an odd orientation that Cloud forgot.

"I suspect she'll not be happy with my finding true love in a man."

Sephiroth tried to puzzle through this, he really did, but was left back where he started.

"Why?" he was forced to ask again, feeling obtuse.

Now it was Cloud's turn to consider. He was sure his mother would prefer he find a female, but why? Was it a prejudice? He never gave this or anything about his mother much thought, actually. He was used to her and knew her ways all his life, but had never tried to see things from her perspective. Sephiroth's need of clear explanation forced him to do that.

"There's a lot of reasons," Cloud said. "She lives in Nibelheim and same sex relationships are frowned on there. She may think it strange, not understand. But you know I think the thing that will bother her most is that she wants me to be happy, and she has her ideas of what happiness is. Having a normal family. Children."

"Cloud, you could still have children."

Cloud craned his head back and away to look at Sephiroth. Was there something else bizarre about his anatomy that Cloud didn't know?

"We could get you a surrogate. I wouldn't trust my genes to procreation, given how much time Hojo has spent altering me. But yours should be good."

"Really?" Cloud said, not sure if he wanted children but interested in Sephiroth's attitude on the subject. "You'd help raise children that weren't genetically yours?"

"Little Cloud Strifes? Absolutely. I don't know about raising, that would probably be a disaster. But I assume help can be hired, and I'd be willing to foot the bill. As long as they looked like you, or at least be confirmed yours. Otherwise I will eat them."

Cloud groaned. He had heard that one, one of the more outrageous rumors of the war- that Sephiroth ate babies.

"Well I don't really know about all of that," Cloud said, "But thanks. For keeping it open."

Cloud was silent for a moment, letting himself sink into the feel of Sephiroth's broad chest supporting him from behind and the confident hands that stroked his arms and torso. "Can we go see her? Will you come, to meet her?"

Sephiroth smiled. in the thought that at least Cloud thought he was presentable enough to be introduced. "You want to go sooner rather than later? I think I can arrange for few days off together in a couple of weeks."

"Really?" Cloud twisted around in Sephiroth's arm, a look of surprise and wonder on his face.

"Yeah really. You think I wouldn't do that for you?"

Cloud put his arms around Sephiroth's neck and shifted up into his lap where he could kiss him.

"You still want me to shower?" Sephiroth asked, fingers finding their way under Cloud's shirt where they could touch his skin.

"Actually, I was thinking about maybe a bath," Cloud said hopefully.

ccccccccccccccccc

"-and I wish you could have worn something... different."

Sephiroth scowled at Cloud. They were seated in the passenger area of one of the smaller Shin-Ra airships, one that could land in the mountainous area of Nibelhiem. Cloud had been snipping at him for the whole trip, unhappy with the fact that Sephiroth had found some work for them to do while they were there, unhappy that Sephiroth wanted to stay at an inn rather than at his mother's house, unhappy with the fact that they hadn't had time to eat before they left. And now this.

"Is there something about my appearance you find unacceptable?" Sephiroth snarled. "It's a little late for you to be deciding that. Like a year too late."

Cloud sighed. He hadn't given it a second thought when they left almost eight hours ago. Sephiroth was wearing his normal stuff, mission stuff. Lots of leather, bare chested under the leather strapped kisori. He looked like he always looked, a look that Cloud particularly loved and always had. He was just suddenly afraid it would frighten his mother. Sephiroth frightened most people.

"I'm sorry, Seph," Cloud said. "You're fine. It's just me. I'm so nervous."

Sephiroth squinted at Cloud, his green eyes suspicious. "Why?" he finally asked.

Cloud shook his head, initially thinking he wouldn't be able to explain. But if he didn't try, who would?

"It's just different. When somebody raises you, you can't deal with them normally. A guy could be the most successful, powerful, hard-nosed businessman on the planet and regress into a neurotic, ineffectual child in the presence of his parents."

Sephiroth didn't look like he was getting it. Cloud scrunched up his brow, searching for something that he might connect to.

"Well, um, you know how you can't deal with Hojo well? You get all... tense?"

Sephiroth sucked his breath in sharply and became immediately agitated. Cloud nodded, that was exactly what he was talking about.

"My experience with him was painfully traumatic," Sephiroth said, "Are you comparing your childhood to that?"

"In one way, in that childhood, even a good one, is kind of traumatic. Simply to go from being completely dependant to your own person- it is traumatic."

A glimmer of understanding passed over the General's face. He remembered pain, horrific things done to himself and other specimens, acute loneliness, but also years of just plain chafing that he had no control over his life long before he was set free. And he wasn't entirely free.

"I don't think either parent or child really recovers into normality after that. Most of the guys say their folks, mothers especially, still see them as helpless boys, even though they're big, rough, crude and killing things for a living. Mom hasn't seen me since I left home at fifteen. I'm a lot different now," Cloud looked down at his own chest, although his body was probably the least of his changes. "But I suspect she'll still see me as her little boy."

"And the company you're keeping is big, crude, and killing things for a living."

Cloud smiled. "Well, you could never be crude. But you are rather intimidating."

Sephiroth reached under his seat and pulled out his duffel, and to Cloud's surprise fished out a heather gray T-shirt. He shirked out of the coat and leather armor, treating Cloud to a momentary flash of nude torso before snaking the T-shirt over his head. Some of the leather went back into the bag. The coat went back on.

"Better?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud grinned, then turned his head as he heard the engines change.

"Landing soon," Sephiroth said. He laid his head against the headrest and looked at Cloud expectantly.

Cloud knew what he was supposed to do, relax to the point of unconsciousness for landing, to keep his joints and muscles loose in the event of a crash. "I'm way to wound up to check out," he said.

Sephiroth trailed his fingers along Cloud's cheek, thinking how normally Cloud could sleep at the barest suggestion.

"Come here," he said, pulling Cloud into his arms and caring little that they normally tried not to fawn over each other in public. Not that the passenger compartment was public; they were the only ones in it at the moment.

Sephiroth ran his hands over Cloud's hair in a soothing gesture, and to Cloud's amazement began to sing. It was barely over a hum, his voice only vaguely following the melody. The words were slow and exotic. It sounded Wutain to Cloud, and he let his head press into the soft T-shirt fabric on Sephiroth's chest until the sound was mostly the rumble of vibration. In a few more seconds he was asleep.

Sephiroth detected the settling of breathing and heartbeat of the young body pressed against him. He smiled, happy that he could remember at least some of that song. The memory of it was hazy as summer; he must have been very young. Someone, he thought it was a woman, used to hold him when he was particularly afraid and in pain. She stroked his hair and sung that song. As he settled himself down for landing, swift and practiced, his drifting mind wondered who she was and what had happened to her.


	15. Gingersnap Cookies

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

Cloud woke to the sound of Sephiroth discussing something with one of the pilots. They were on the ground, and the pilot was struggling to keep from glancing at Cloud. Cloud stared back at the young mouse-like man from the protective circle of the General's arms, a pair of bright blue diamonds peaking over an arm wrapped in black leather. When the General had finished he dismissed the nervous pilot as relief washed over the rodent sharp features.

"Green pilots," Sephiroth muttered, prodding Cloud upright. Cloud suspected they had made a rough landing, although he had slept right through it. He had zonked completely out. Anxiety always took a lot out of him.

They shouldered their duffles and stepped down the airship's ramp, their boots clanging on the metal surface under them. Cloud was immediately assaulted with a confusing barrage to his senses. He smelled the cool mountain air, heard those thousands of night sounds that were so familiar yet normally completely ignored. He felt his heart lift at the thought and feel of the mountains. Then his throat constricted on it's own as his eyes fell upon the town. Nibelheim. The ShinRa landing pad was a few hundred feet above center of town, giving them a good view of its evening state. Nibelheim was perfectly cradled in its valley, the sprinkling of yellow-orange lights of house windows surrounding the darkened downtown commercial area like an enormous, oblong doughnut. Only a handful of sparks burned in that darkened middle, drinking establishments no doubt. For the most part Nibelheim shut down early at night. Good thing they had eaten in Rocket Town where they had transferred airships.

"Charming," Sephiroth said, somewhat dryly. He wasn't actually a big fan of charming. Plus he had detected Cloud's increase in anxiety. "Ready?" He asked, running a hand down the back of Cloud's head.

"Yeah," Cloud said. They were walking to their destination as it was only about a mile and a half and the slim moon provided plenty of light for the two Soldiers. They had barely cleared the rotor before the airship took off again, eager to make to return home where their beds waited. The sudden gale whipped Sephiroth's hair into both of their faces and he gathered it almost unconsciously with his free hand. They walked for a good ten minutes in silence.

"I hate this town," Cloud said suddenly.

Sephiroth cocked an eyebrow at his young companion. Cloud disliked talking about his hometown, and although Sephiroth understood that he had not been happy there he'd never heard Cloud say anything so definite about it before. It sounded like Cloud had only just now understood it clearly himself. They had come into the main part of town now, dark wooden buildings with some sort of tile roofing crowded the narrow street as if to get a better look at the two newcomers. In front of one of the larger buildings Cloud stopped.

"I particularly hate this place," Cloud said, scowling at it.

Sephiroth looked at vilified building. Arched over the wide, double doors, easily visible to his over-bright eyes, block lettering spelled 'Nibelheim Oberschule'. Sephiroth had to take a moment to decipher the arcane local dialect. Something 'school', some sort of upper level public school. Cloud walked around the side of the building and Sephiroth followed, curious.

Cloud stopped by the back wall, vast and windowless, his heart rate rising a little seeing the dirt path along it. The path was still worn down by students just as it had been three years ago when he had left, as it had ten, twenty, fifty years ago. He wondered how many were now living the same hell he had, saddled into adulthood with the same fear and anxiety over that damn path. There was no way around using the path, the front door was reserved for teachers and staff. Adults. Students had to use the back door and run the gauntlet. You couldn't go off to the right, the way was completely blocked. Cloud looked at the wall hemming in the weed choked rear courtyard. It was barely ten feet high. He could clear that now in a single jump. Of course even back then he had figured out a way to scale it, but before that...

"There," Cloud said, pointing at a spot along the wall near the far corner. "Once I was beaten so badly there by three guys, all older and bigger than me, that it was two hours before I regained consciousness. And it took me an hour to limp home."

Sephiroth studied Cloud's face, the beautiful, still-boyish lips pursed so tightly they had disappeared into a thin line as he ground his teeth to and fro. Sephiroth knew this type of guy, bullies who attacked weaker targets and often in numbers. They were cowards, and the entrance screening for Soldier cadet kept most of them out. He and his First Classes rid them of the remainder. Soldier had no use for a man who couldn't stomach risk, especially when he seemed outmatched or alone. But at the moment Sephiroth was unsure what to do for Cloud. He couldn't erase Cloud's past pains any more than Cloud could erase his.

"This was common?" Sephiroth asked softly.

"Yup," Cloud turned and walked away, forcing Sephiroth to follow. "Common for everyone who was different. Because I was small, because I had no father. Because they somehow sensed I didn't like girls. And who knows what else. Because I was smart, because I wanted something more, something better than this."

"Is there no order in this town? From the adults, I mean. Laws?"

Cloud snorted and strode back to the street. "That building there?" Cloud pointed to the more ornate building across from them. "That's the town hall. The lofty seat of the Nibelheim government. I once had all my money and my books taken from me right on the steps, the mayor himself came out and when the arschlochs ran off he implied that it was my own fault. I guess for not fighting hard enough while I was locked in a full nelson."

The hackles rose on the back of Sephiroth's neck and he gazed around at the seemingly quiet town.

"I spent as much time as I could by myself, in the mountains," Cloud said.

"You meshed yourself with the planet rather than these boors. I'm grateful for that."

Cloud looked at him suddenly, wonder and a hint of smile on his face. Sephiroth put his arm around his shoulder and urged them on. "And it's probably why you gained your feeling for navigation."

Now Cloud smiled more fully, feeling Sephiroth squeeze him in response. They walked along this way as they entered the residential area. The first block was quiet, but by the second block somebody had spotted them. Window dressings stirred on each side of the street, revealing shifty faces that disappeared with the first glance from either of their mako glowing eyes. Within two minutes by some complicated movement of communication that could only be described through fractal physics the entire town would know that they had arrived, what street they were walking down, and what they each were wearing. And the fact that the legendary General was sauntering along with his arm around the shoulder of Cloud Strife. Cloud felt a spiteful little shot of glee, followed by another one of those cold drenches of anxiety. He _really_ wasn't looking forward to explaining to his mother the full extent of what that embrace meant. He shuddered slightly under Sephiroth's arm and that arm tightened again.

"We seem to be stirring some interest," Sephiroth said, and then delighting in glaring at a woman with large rollers and night cap and making her retreat from her window.

"Yeah, small town," Cloud said. "Here we are."

They turned up the walk to one of the many houses on the tree lined street. Before they got to the door it flew open and a petite blonde woman exploded out of it and onto Cloud. Sephiroth was forced to let go of Cloud and take a step back.

"Oh Cloud, you're here, my baby boy!"

The woman that Sephiroth presumed was Cloud's mother had him in some sort of death grip.

"Hi mom," Cloud managed to choke out as he waited for her arms to tire.

"Oh, come in, come in!" she said, finally looking at Sephiroth but unable to turn entirely away from her son.

"Mom, this is Sephiroth. General Sephiroth."

"How do you do, ma'am," Sephiroth said with a polite little bow.

"Oh, call me Abby."

"Abby," Sephiroth repeated, smiling faintly and bowing again.

Cloud noticed his mother blinking repeatedly, momentarily hypnotized by Sephiroth. This happened all the time. The general inspired quite a number of strong reactions, depending on his attitude, but he never went unnoticed.

"Let's go inside," Cloud said, jarring his mother out of her bewitched state.

"Oh, yes!" she cried, "What are we doing, standing out on the stoop in the middle of the night like a pack of ninnies! I have refreshments, I'm so glad you could come General, Cloud has told me so much about you..."

Abby Strife continued to talk excitedly as they passed through the front door. Cloud looked mildly embarrassed and Sephiroth smiled at him, identifying her chatter as familiar. Cloud occasionally did the same when he was excited about something. He had done it the first time they met, when Sephiroth asked him about sword practice.

Sephiroth looked around, letting Cloud handle the conversation. There wasn't much to handle, just an occasional word of agreement or easily answered question. Abby handled the rest. How was their trip? She saw on the telly there had been some weather over the mountains, there were the best apples at the farmers market this morning, she had made fritters... He wandered away from the other two. Sephiroth had never actually been in a private stand-alone residence before and studied every detail with interest. Abby Strife's home was warm and comfortable, reflecting its owner no doubt. The wallpaper had patterns a tad to busy for Sephiroth's taste with a few small corners peeled up here and there needing attention. Small items sat on every surface, flower vases, little figures of various things, and small framed pictures of people, presumably friends and family members. Sephiroth examined these with interest. One large wall mounted frame in particular caught his eye, one of those that held multiple small photos, starting with Cloud as a baby in the upper left and terminating with Cloud in his Soldier uniform, arms linked with Anthony and Thom, in the lower right. He recognized that one, it was a photo taken from cadet graduation day. He studied the sequence from the beginning. Cloud's large blue eyes, recognizable even in the baby with the look of wonder on its face, a small grinning toddler, a pair of masculine hands jutting into the photo to hold him up as he learned to walk. Ecstatically happy Cloud opening a present at Winternight. But about a quarter of the way through the eight or ten year old Cloud stopped smiling. The rest of the photos wore the soft, touched with sadness half-smile that Sephiroth was more familiar with. The reserved expression common to adults. Sephiroth thought that Cloud was probably right, growing up was traumatic for everyone. He looked again at the last photo. Cloud, like his two friends, was grinning ear to ear. Sephiroth smiled to himself. Now there was something that could break through that adult reserve. Soldier was a hard, nasty, painful job, but it was also magnificent. Glorious. Recklessly joyous in some ways.

Cloud interrupted Sephiroth's thoughts with a hand to his shoulder.

"Oh, geez," he said, seeing what Sephiroth had gotten into.

"And people say you're cute now," Sephiroth said, giving the whole frame another look.

Cloud groaned and pulled him away from the photos. Now Sephiroth let his mind pay attention to what his nose had been clamoring about. Something smelled good. He let himself be led into the kitchen, the source of these smells and a general hub of warmth and brightness.

"Tea?" Abby Strife was busily pouring tea before he could answer.

"Yes, thank-you," Sephiroth said, determined to consume whatever was offered to him, even if it was cabbage. But what he saw on the table was five or six varieties of sweets and breads. Cloud had already selected something and was munching away in obvious bliss. Sephiroth continued to scan the selection, trying to spatially separate out the source of the smell he was most interested in. It seemed to be coming from the round, flat items on the far right. He knew what they were. Cookies. The ShinRa mess did not serve 'cookies', his caterer did not make 'cookies'. But the men sometimes had them, and he'd seen them in bakeries in various towns, but he would never purchase a food item with such a ridiculous name.

"You want one of those?" Cloud asked. He had noticed the General staring.

Sephiroth didn't move. Cloud reached over to the plate and picked up two, one for himself and one for Sephiroth.

"They're gingersnaps," he said.

Sephiroth eyed his treat. "They are not... cookies?"

Cloud laughed and almost spit his out in the process. "Yes, gingersnaps are cookies."

He watched Sephiroth sniff, then carefully take a bite. Then stuff the whole thing in his mouth at once. Cloud almost laughed again, and saw his mother give Sephiroth a bemused look. He had warned her about the General, his frequent social lapses and ignorance of common conventions, so Cloud wasn't too worried. She set the tea cups on the table, then picked up another ginersnap and gave it to Sephiroth. He ate that one too.

They chatted for an hour, or rather Cloud and his mother did, mostly about town gossip and questions Abby asked about her son's life. Cloud was cautious with his answers, and Sephiroth was happy to stay on the sidelines and listen. Cloud had said he wanted an easy evening his first night, no revelations until the following day. This he managed, and after an hour the rhythm and energy level of the group let them know it was time for bed.

Cloud stood and stretched, his mother coming around the table to hug him again.

"I just can't believe how big you are," Abby said with a small sniffle. "All grown up."

"Ah, mom, don't," Cloud said, embarrassed but smiling. He cast his eyes around for an escape, found a smirking Sephiroth no help, and looked to the table.

"Did you eat all these?" Cloud picked up an empty plate that had once been full of gingersnaps and waved it at the General. His mother let go of him long enough to see for herself, then also looked questioningly at Sephiroth. Sephiroth returned a remarkably innocent look, so utterly free of discomfort that Cloud questioned his guilt. But it had to have been him. Cloud hadn't eaten them and his mother wouldn't eat a whole plate of cookies. He set the plate down, shaking his head.

Abby Strife smiled, actually patted the General on the arm, and began to clean up the dishes. Cloud stepped in to help.

"I've got these, dear, why don't you show our guest to his room?"

Cloud kissed his mother on the cheek then motioned for Sephiroth to follow him. They went up a narrow wooden stair that groaned in response to their weight. Sephiroth had to dip his head to the side where the first floor ceiling failed to give way soon enough for his height as he ascended.

"Here, um..." Cloud scratched his head as he looked at Sephiroth apologetically, "The guest bedroom is yours. Bathroom is down the hall"

Cloud caught the slight twinge of dissatisfaction on Sephiroth's face. Having to sleep separately for the sake of appearance was one of the many reasons Sephiroth had wanted to stay at the inn, but Cloud had insisted that he wouldn't get to know his mother that way; plus she would be hurt to have her hospitality rejected. Sephiroth let Cloud have the bathroom first, and Cloud, his nervousness again running high, said goodnight without so much as a kiss.

Behind the closed door of his childhood bedroom Cloud stripped to his shorts and lay down, deliberately not looking around. His mother had kept his room roughly the same as when he had left, and that was creeping him out a little. He always heard people say that returning home was a strange feeling, that nothing seemed the same because when you leave, you change. He did feel odd. But it wasn't because things seemed different. They seemed the same, exactly the same. Whatever part of his brain that kept track of things until they reached the status of 'familiar' still responded to his old home. Only it wasn't his home anymore. The kitchen, the stair, this room, they all carried the flags of everyday familiarity, but they were not part of his everyday environment. He didn't belong here anymore. It was familiarity in the face of that fact that felt strange.

Cloud rolled over in bed, feeling the disquiet of being stared at. He craned his neck up and over his pillow and saw it – that poster on his closet door. The same ShinRa Soldier recruitment poster that Sephiroth took such objection to, that one of him in front of the fiery orange background.

Cloud rolled over again. He missed Sephiroth's arms around him, and he was so uptight at the moment he particularly wanted their comforting weight right now. He sat up and put his feet on the rug, feeling the nubby surface. It was an old oval shaped rug that his grandmother had made, carefully woven from strips of rag back when rags were all his family had. But it had held up, year after year, providing a thick barrier between his bare feet and the wooden floor. He stepped carefully, equally weighting both feet near the head of the bed. This was the least creaky part of the floor. It gave a small pop anyway, reminding him that he was a good forty pounds heavier than when he last slept in this room.

He carefully picked his way along his old path, the quietest path on the plank floor, grateful now for that remembered familiarity. He managed his door the same way, remembering to lift before turning the knob. He had developed these skills the same as any teenager had, from the desire to be free at night. Cloud hadn't hooligan friends to go create mischief with, or girls to sneak out and meet, but his need had been no less strong. He liked to wander at night, up into the mountain behind their house, or just sit up on their roof or in their yard. He knew this would have upset his mother, so he learned to be quiet.

The floor snapped right outside of Sephiroth's door. Cloud froze and listened. His new ears, his fantastic, miracles of ears, could hear his mother's breathing, low and rhythmic, with the slightest snoring rasp. He couldn't hear Sephiroth and he wouldn't either way. Sephiroth was damn near silent when he breathed, awake or asleep. But he would be awake, probably listening since Cloud's first slow steps. Cloud shook his head to himself. He felt ridiculous, standing in his underwear, statue-still in the dark, sneaking up on the door of the man he lived with, the man he planned to wed himself to. He went through the door and with two steps was in the double bed with Sephiroth.

"Well hello there," Sephiroth whispered, putting both arms around Cloud. "How are you doing?"

"I'm just... ." Cloud wriggled around, moving to maximize their skin contact. "I'm better."

Sephiroth kissed Cloud's ear, his eyebrow, then his lips. He may not have understood all of what Cloud was feeling, but he understood 'better'. 'Better' was enough for him. He continued his kisses to Cloud's jawline, the wonderfully soft skin on Cloud's neck, and his collarbone. He pulled Cloud close to him, pressing their bodies together so Cloud might feel the arousal that their nearness had engendered.

"Oh, noooo, Seph..." Cloud protested as his anxiety increased again.

Sephiroth felt the tightening in Cloud's body, the stiffening of his neck and the muscles in his face. The easiest remedy was obvious; if he could get Cloud to accept it.

"Are you sure?" Sephiroth asked, running one hand down to Cloud's boxers and finding him partially erect.

"We can't," Cloud said, but his protests were sounding less than convincing. "The noise. Mom's a really light sleeper."

"We'll be quiet."

Cloud snorted a laugh, and Sephiroth could feel a bit of that muscular tension release. Everywhere except that one muscle, that instead expanded a bit in his hand.

"This bed is _way_ too squeaky," Cloud said.

"It's OK. Your mother will just think I'm a restless sleeper."

Another laugh, another drop in tension, another stiffening of the organ in Sephiroth's hand.

"I don't think I want her thinking you're _that_ kind restless."

"But I am." Sephiroth worked his lips down one firm and mounded shoulder, satisfied in feeling Cloud's body giving over to a wholly different type of tension. He moved his lips lower, down Cloud's side until he had to stop to push Cloud's boxers off his hips. Cloud lifted his hips to help, apparently putting his fear of noise aside for the moment. Sephiroth smiled at what he had uncovered. Cloud, completely self assured and immodest, let his legs fall to the sides, exposing his nudity and fully formed erection. Sephiroth ran his hands lightly down the inside of Cloud's thighs, then pulling his hair out of the way he lowered his lips to Cloud's organ.

Cloud sighed at that feeling, so intense and alive that it drove away his worries if only by not leaving space for anything else in his brain. He wanted to share.

"Come here." Cloud locked his fingers around the waistband of Sephiroth's boxers, trying to pull that region closer to him. Sephiroth cooperated, reversing his body on the bed and shirking off his own shorts. With greedy abandon Cloud grasped his hips, sliding him closer on the blue and white patterned sheets. He immediately wrapped his lips around the smooth pale head and sucked until the length filled his mouth. He felt the same being done to him and groaned, the vibration somehow travelling into Sephiroth until it was returned to him as the same, vibrating groan. Cloud's hands moved and clutched as his head and hips moved in concert with Sephiroth's head and hips, their balanced closed circle imparting hardly any oscillation to the old bedsprings. Cloud felt himself harden further, that last extra straining before the explosion, and almost immediately felt the same tightening against the surface of his own tongue and against the back of his throat. He squeezed and gripped, digging fingernails into Sephiroth's side. Then the salty, musky fluid spurted into his mouth just as every nerve in his body sharpened to a point centered in his groin and lit with bright ecstasy. He swallowed, needing to pant partly through his mouth but not willing to let go of the oral feeling of Sephiroth softening there and tasting the last few drops released. He kissed the soft, spongy head again before letting go entirely and allowing Sephiroth to flip back over.

Sephiroth stroked Cloud's face and smiled at the sleepy blue eyes. They put their lips together, mouths opening to share and mingle the residual taste of what they had experienced from one another.

"I needed that," Cloud said.

Sephiroth chuckled. "I thought so." Every bit of Cloud was relaxed now, soft and already falling asleep against him. He shut his eyes and together they slept.

**A/N: My old Norwegian grandmother, who was born about 1900, made a rug like the one in Cloud's room. I gather that somehow you take the rags and cut and twist them until they make cords about half an inch in diameter and then weave it together in a a circular pattern. I don't know how you get it to be oval. I don't know what you do with the ends. Maybe there's some stitching involved. It's an old world skill, and an admirable example of how my grandparents wasted nothing. And it was quite beautiful, I expect my mother still has it. **


	16. Open

**A/N: This is really slow going for me, not just because I'm busy, but everything going on here is so... touchy. Hard. Slow for me. I wanted to finish this sequence in by now but it's just getting too big. So here's a chapter that I had no good name for.**

**Thank-you for all the nice info on rag rugs mentioned in reviews and some PMs I got. It's comforting to know that people still learn and use these skills. **

The smell of bacon woke Cloud, or at least woke his brain. Cloud's body appeared to have no intention of getting up. It rolled over and pushed into smooth, warm skin and his face sunk into stranded silk. He inhaled along with the bacon smell that familiar scent that had taken him months to categorize. Something like a cross between black pepper and persimmons. Sephiroth. But if Sephiroth was beside him, who was making bacon? Were they in the field, Zack or one of the guys cooking bacon over a fire? He smiled in his half-sleep; it didn't get much better than bacon over an open fire.

Cloud cracked an eye open to see Sephiroth looking at him. The sun was already up, and Cloud took a moment to admire the light glinting off the General's bright green irises that surrounded those unusual vertical pupils. He held his breath a moment as those eyes stared into his, beautiful and exotic. Unique. Then Cloud looked around, confused as to where he was. They were indoors, in a room... then all of yesterday's memory came back to him in a single rush.

"Ooh," Cloud said, realizing he was in the guest bed with Sephiroth, in his mother's house, and his mother was already up. Making bacon.

Sephiroth chuckled and squeezed Cloud closer. Then he tickled him and bit Cloud's neck lightly.

"Gah, Seph, no!" Cloud shout-whispered, clenching his teeth against laughing. With enough wiggling he managed to free himself and get his feet on the floor and find his boxers. He carefully opened the door and stuck his head out, then, deciding it was clear, he darted into the hallway.

"Oh, Cloud, you're up!" Cloud's mother had magically appeared at the bottom of the stair, freezing him in midstep. He turned so as to make it appear he had been heading to the bathroom and also to hide the tenting of his shorts from his standard morning stiffy that Sephiroth's tickling had only encouraged.

"Breakfast will be ready soon," she called, heading back into the kitchen. Cloud let out his breath and slipped into the bathroom. When he came out wearing naught but a towel Sephiroth was already dressed, looking fresh and alert, and standing in Cloud's room.

"Oh," Cloud said, once he saw what Sephiroth was looking at. It was the recruiting poster. "Well that's embarrassing. What can I say; you are pretty sexy in that thing." He grabbed each upper corner and detached the poster, rolling it quickly into a long tube and sliding it behind the dresser. He avoided Sephiroth's curious look by busying himself dressing, and when he looked back the General had found something else to interest himself. He was studying the items on Cloud's dresser. He picked up a heavy piece of glass, a cylinder five inches across with one flat end and one grooved pointy end something like a lemon juicer.

"It's a deck prism," Cloud said, "The flat side mounts flush to the deck of a ship and shoots sunlight down to the deck below. My father brought it back from one of his... trips."

Sephiroth picked up in turn small knives, interesting colored rocks, a radio controlled car. Cloud explained each one, all the trappings of childhood, knowing they were foreign to Sephiroth. Sephiroth appeared equally fascinated by them all. Cloud had a ball mitt, there was at least one kid around here he had played with. There were books on weapons, and the infamous scrapbook Sephiroth had already heard about.

"Are you boys coming to breakfast?" Abby Strife called from downstairs. "I swear, Cloud, I can't imagine what you're doing up there!"

Sephiroth raised his eyebrows at Cloud suggestively and Cloud elbowed him in the ribs. They came down the stairs to the smell of not only bacon but Pfannkuchen, Cloud's favorite. Sephiroth stared at the plate-sized pastry in front of him, unsure if it was something he should recognize.

"It's regional," Cloud said, noticing his hesitation. "It's kind of a pancake. A big fluffy, pancake."

Sephiroth nodded. He had eaten pancakes before, and slathered it with butter and white sugar as Cloud did.

"So you have business at the reactor today?" Abby addressed the General, eyeing his absurdly long sword now leaning in a corner, probably thinking it was an odd thing to bring down to breakfast.

"Yes, a short mission," Sephiroth answered, in a voice that was polite but firm enough to deter questions about their business.

"Pretty hard to get out there now, since ShinRa took out the bridge."

Sephiroth considered Abby Strife. He had been briefed on the area but sometimes briefings were less accurate than local information. "It's my understanding that there is a footbridge."

"Death trap more like. It's not passable," Abby said.

"It's passable," Cloud said. "I've been on it." Cloud looked up apologetically at his mother's stunned, wide eyes.

"We'll be fine," he said.

"I heard there's monsters been sighted up there," she said, loading more food onto the General's plate. Cloud had warned her about their appetites.

"We'll dispatch of any monsters we find," Sephiroth said matter-of-factly.

"We'll be careful," Cloud promised.

Possibly to get her mind off of her son fighting monsters up in the mountains, Abby turned the conversation to social matters. She asked Cloud about his friends, how he spent his free time. She inquired after Zack, Anthony, and Thom and Cloud updated her on each of their lives.

"So you don't see your friend Thom much, and Anthony is Midgar only half the time?" She asked.

"Yeah, but Zack's always around, and Sephiroth and I spend quite a lot of time with each other," Cloud said.

Abby Strife smiled at Sephiroth. "Well I'm so glad Cloud has found such nice friends at ShinRa."

She turned to the stove and Sephiroth gave Cloud a questioning look. Cloud had passed up a good opportunity to broach the main reason they had come to Nibelheim. But Cloud merely frowned as tension retook his body.

"But I haven't heard you say anything about someone special, Cloud. Aren't there any girls in Midgar?"

Cloud actually turned a little green.

"Not that there's any rush," Cloud's mother continued, taking a seat across the table from the two men. "You're still so young. You could have a whole slew of girlfriends before settling down."

Cloud didn't respond. He kept his eyes down on his food, but he had stopped eating it. Sephiroth could feel the pain coming off him like physical heat, yet Cloud was unbelievably passing on this opening as well.

"Cloud, are your feeling alright?" his mother asked. Cloud looked up, and smiled weakly.

"I'm fine," he lied. Sephiroth was sure Cloud's unhappiness ratcheted up another notch with this deception, but he looked like he was still no closer to doing the thing that would give him relief. Sephiroth could stand it no longer.

"Mrs. Strife, Cloud and I are lovers."

At first Abby Strife just stared, mouth open. Then, even though her face remained statue still, all the color drained out of it before returning in a red rush. Cloud likewise had froze, his expression horror stricken. Then slowly he lowered his face and put it into his hands.

This was nothing like the relief Sephiroth had hoped for. Cloud's anxiety, if anything, had increased. They sat like this for several seconds in utter silence. Had it been night he was sure all of them would have heard the chirping of the night insects outside. Sephiroth began to think he had made an outrageous error of some kind.

"Cloud, did I just-."

"Yes," Cloud interrupted him before he could finish the thought. The blue eyes came up over the tips of Cloud's fingers but he kept his mouth hidden. In those eyes that Sephiroth had made such effort to learn to read he saw the stress, what looked like fear, and a sliver of something else that looked a little like laughter that he hoped represented relief. Or maybe it was hysteria.

"Could you go for a walk for awhile?" Cloud asked.

Sephiroth stood, and gracefully retrieved his sword. Cloud reached over and caught his arm, his hand.

"Please don't go to the reactor without me," Cloud said, "I don't want you going alone."

Sephiroth nodded. Between the terrain issues and potential monsters, protocol dictated that this mission have a partner when possible. He touched Cloud's face lightly, then gave Abby a sincere and polite bow, and showed himself out. Cloud watched him go until the door completely removed him from view. Then he turned slowly to his mother.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know how to tell you."

She frowned, shaking her head in small spasms and searching for words of her own.

"So you bring him here, to tell me? To do your speaking for you? Does he do all your speaking for you? Your General, this General of the whole _army_?"

"It's not like that."

"Oh? How is it Cloud? You leave home and immediately fall into the clutches of one the most powerful men on the planet?"

Cloud felt a small spark of anger at that, at the indignation of not having his three years away from home acknowledged, or the fact that he could make his own decisions. He took a long, slow breath and felt his body back away from the green it was threatening. His mother could really make him crazy sometimes.

"It's my decision," he said evenly, "to be with him. And I had hoped this wouldn't come as a complete shock. I did tell you once, about the way I am. My preference for men."

"You were seven!" Abby cried, in what would have been a shout coming a more substantial or aggressive person. "Who believes a seven year old??"

Cloud didn't know what to say to this, it sounded a bit absurd, even to himself now, but he knew what he known. He always knew.

"I thought it was just a child's whim," she continued, "I thought..." Now tears leaked from Abby's eyes and she had to work to free the breath catching in her throat. "You never spoke of anything else like that later."

"There were lots of things we never spoke of. Like Dad," Cloud said before he could stop himself. Abby gave a loud sob and Cloud swore softly. That was really the wrong direction right now. He wanted to come around the table to his mother's side, to attempt to comfort, but she wasn't just crying in sadness. There was real anger there too, and a body language that warned him away from her side of the table. He made himself do the slow breathing again.

"There were plenty of other... indicators while I was growing up," Cloud said, "I know you were living with the hope that I was just a late bloomer, but some part of you must have known-."

"How could you?" Abby said, apparently not hearing him now. Cloud got the strange feeling it wasn't quite directed at him. It was the same tone she used if ever she referred to his father. "How could you do this to m-." She stopped herself just short of the last damning word, perhaps suddenly realizing the selfishness inherent there.

Now Cloud did step around the table, invading her space and taking up both of her hands in his, her anger be damned.

"This is about me," he said, "About who I am and what I need to make me happy. Sephiroth makes me happy. Not hiding who I am makes me happy. That's why I had to tell you."

She jerked her hands out of his and backed away, wiping angrily at her tears.

"I don't want _that man_ in my house," she said sharply. Cloud sighed and a great sadness settled on him. He thought he had explained well. He had stayed calm. But what had he expected, anyway? That his mother would embrace the idea of her gay son? Her only child? This wasn't Midgar after all.

"OK," he said. "I'll get our stuff and check us into the inn downtown."

At the word "us" Abby's eyes lifted with obvious apprehension.

"I'd like to come back and see you, later, after we finish at the reactor," Cloud said.

Abby nodded her head almost absently, frowning anew at the mention of the reactor. Cloud hated the idea of leaving her like this, but he didn't think his being here was helping her at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. With a heavy heart and now nauseous stomach filled with Pfannkuchen Cloud trudged back up the stair to re-pack his duffle and collect his sword. In the guest room he slung the General's already neatly packed bag over his free shoulder, kissed his mother on the way out even though she stiffened as he did it, and left his mother's home.

cccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth headed straight for the downtown area upon leaving Cloud and his mother. He wasn't so much worried about Cloud as he felt pained for him, and frustrated by knowing there was nothing he could do for him at the moment. Cloud would find him, in half an hour, or an hour. He would spend that time looking into something that puzzled him. There was a sizable building, ornate and non-commercial looking, a block or so off the main street. It looked, or maybe felt, familiar somehow.

He made his way through town, speaking to no one but noticing their poorly concealed stares. He simply had too many things about him worth staring at for paserbys to stop at one quick glance. They stared at his coat, his hair, his boots, his sword which he currently had loaded on his back via a special collar clip incorporated into the leather gear under it. He considered hip mounting it so he could swing the long blade out behind him and maybe trip a few of them. The thought lifted his spirits some. In addition to the morning's ill events a small, niggling headache had plagued him since that bumpy landing the night before. It had dispersed for a few hours after he had lain with Cloud, but edged back like a thief in the night and was starting to grate on his nerves.

He moved his neck around to temporarily dislodge the pressure as he passed the town hall, a building that looked wholly unremarkable in the daylight. He passed the dreaded school with a bare glance and then went down a side street to find what interested him. The structure, a mansion of a house for a town this size, somehow managed to look darker now than it had during the night. He thought that maybe it was due to the windows, which were now so obviously boarded up. The place looked to have been abandoned for some time. Sephiroth approached the door, which wore a large external metal plate with a padlock. And a sign, faded but still readable.

**Property of ShinRa Power Co.  
No unauthorized entry**

The ShinRa logo, recognized the planet over, decorated the bottom of the note in addition to the universal red palm symbol for "stop", presumably for those who couldn't read. Sephiroth had no trouble understanding the sign or the symbol; he simply chose to ignore them both. He ignored every ShinRa sign of that type on the grounds that if they didn't tell him specifically he had no way to be sure it applied to him. He grabbed the padlock and with a quick twist tore it free. The door swung open easily, oddly silent on unused hinges. He stepped into a dust-choked atrium, light filtering in from cracks between the window boards and lighting the dust into threads of glittering gold. The heels of his boots echoed softly on the old wooden floor, and he stepped through the stale rooms, reaching with his mind and memory. He had been here before; he was sure of it now. But the place was empty, abandoned, nothing to enlighten him beyond that feeling at the edge of his memory. Either he was very young when he had been here, or under one of Hojo's nightmare drugs. He didn't remember any of those episodes lasting long enough to travel to Nibelheim and back. Maybe he was a baby or toddler here. Hojo would probably have the answer to this, but he had no intention of asking him about it. His past was not nearly important enough to suffer through a personal conversation with that madman. What was important to him was his present. Cloud might be looking for him now and he wasn't going to find Sephiroth if he was lurking about in some old house. With one last look around inside the old relic he left it behind him, and headed back to the main street.

He found Cloud almost immediately, talking to what looked like a local shop owner. Cloud looked cool and professional, but the shop owner was fairly fawning over him. Sephiroth smiled a little, watching them. The power of ShinRa; there were always those who responded to it whether that made sense to their life or not. Sephiroth came up behind Cloud and put his hand on Cloud's shoulder. The shopkeeper's eyes widened at him in what looked like excitement. Cloud looked up at the General and smiled thinly.

"Duty calls," Cloud said to the man as way of excusing himself and then departed without making introductions.

"Idiot," Cloud muttered under his breath. Kunkle never deemed to look at him before he had gone away and become Soldier. "Let's just get out of here."

Sephiroth let Cloud lead through a section of residential area where ShinRa land that belonged to the reactor jutted into the own. They followed the old road in silence until the forest secluded them from view. There Cloud stopped, leaned into Sephiroth, and put his head onto the wide shoulder.

Sephiroth wrapped his arms around Cloud, noting with some detached wonder how easy this had become for him, to hold somebody, to offer comfort. He put a continuous stream of kisses on Cloud's head and gradually became aware that Cloud was weeping, slowly, quietly. He lifted Cloud's chin up and wiped a wet spot from Cloud's face.

"Didn't go well, did it?"

"Not really," Cloud said. "She, um... doesn't want you in her house." Cloud cringed a little, wondering if he should have shared that. But this was Sephiroth, the guy he shared things with. He was also fortunately a guy who was remarkably immune to social discomfort. "She's very autocratic about the house, it's all she has. Grandpa, her father, built it." Cloud said by way of explanation. Sephiroth's first thought was that if grandpa's stature was anything like Cloud's that probably explained the low ceiling issue he had in the house on the stairway. Then it occurred to him that this separated him and Cloud logistically. And maybe in other ways as well. He frowned.

"I checked us into the hotel," Cloud said.

"Us?"

"Yeah, us, we're_ together,_ right?"

"Together." Sephiroth said, wiping the other cheek.

"Sorry," Cloud said, abashed and now smiling a little, "For bawling all over you like this."

Sephiroth smiled. "It's quite all right. I want to be the one you bawl on. I want to be the one to do this." He wiped another tear. "For all your life, I want to be the one."

Cloud's eyes shone over wet cheeks. "You are," he said and lifted up on his toes to kiss Sephiroth. "Can we kill some monsters now?"

Sephiroth laughed; he understood this entirely. Nothing cleared the mind like a little action. Of either sort. "I think we're in luck. Do you hear them?"

Cloud looked around excitedly, and listened, his mind immediately shifting gears. He shook his head. Sephiroth's senses were so much sharper than his.

"Half a mile maybe," Sephiroth said. "Something strange." The General stepped down the road listening, smelling. Cloud followed, slipping into silent stalk mode. They left the road that only led to an absent bridge and Cloud directed them on a dirt path almost erased by nature that led towards the foot bridge. After about ten minutes Cloud could hear it too. Hear them.

"They gotta be on the other side of the ravine," Cloud said quietly. "Hear that kind of echo-y thing? Or feel it, rather?"

Sephiroth nodded. He could feel the ravine even if they couldn't see it. It was practically yawning before their feet but the thick trees hid it. The thing must be a dangerous surprise to those without the navigation intuition. They approached the ravine slowly, cautiously, until the trees fell away and they stood almost at its lip.

"The bridge is out," Cloud said, sounding a little stunned. Sephiroth knelt down and looked at the bridge's footing. It had been deconstructed with tools. ShinRa, or maybe the townspeople. Nibelungen were a self-sustaining community and miners to boot. No shortage of tools or skills here for this kind of thing.

"This may be why the monsters haven't come into the town," Sephiroth said. He was annoyed that this detail hadn't been given to him prior to arriving, but it wasn't uncommon. Even if ShinRa had destroyed the bridge themselves that information might not penetrate the bureaucratic quagmire to get to the people who needed it. Either way it was of no consequence to the two Soldiers. They were going to the reactor, bridge or no.

"Is this the thin spot?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud nodded. "Looks like about thirty feet."

Sephiroth knew he could make that jump, at least going towards the reactor because the landing site was lower than where they were standing. But he didn't want to leave Cloud behind. Cloud needed to kill something, and the monsters were on the other side. Besides, they were together.

"You have the standard twenty feet with you?" Sephiroth asked.

"Yeah," Cloud said, feeling grateful for the Ambush Day training that had taught him to carry rope.

"We'll tie our ropes together and I'll take it across. We'll secure both sides and you'll rope climb over."

Cloud looked down into the ravine; the thing was damn near bottomless. Rope climbing across was going to make the foot bridge his mother complained of look like a baby's walk. On the other hand it was going to a far cry easier than bug-crawling without safety line on the underside of the plate.

Sephiroth let Cloud tie the knot and then gave a pull on it to check it for himself. Cloud frowned at him for doing that, but Sephiroth only smiled.

"That's standard," he said, "Always check your partner's knots." He kissed Cloud and moved to tie the anchor for their side. He always checked rope knots when he could, but in this case he especially had no intention of losing Cloud into a ravine. He held the rope end in his left hand; it wouldn't do to tie it to himself, if it came up short or hung up somehow it would pull at him and interfere with his jump, possibly to a disastrous result. Sephiroth eyed the target, took a run at the edge and then he was sailing and falling across the ravine. Cloud sucked in his breath at a small shower of rock that gave way before the General gained his footing on the other side. With no sign of anxiety Sephiroth found another anchor and tied his end. He gave the hand signal for Cloud to cross.

Cloud grabbed onto the rope with one hand and with the other clipped the carabineer on his utility belt around it. He couldn't imagine falling off a rope while going over such a short distance, but the carbineer was there to guard against things not imagined. Like a flying monster coming out of nowhere and startling him. Cloud laughed a little at the thought of flying monsters in Nibelheim. He wrapped his calves and feet around the rope and easily made his way across, ignoring the wind that swayed him and pausing once to look around and enjoy the thrill of his dizzying height above the ravine. There was water down there; he could hear it, and smell it now. He'd never heard the water in the ravine before, but of course it had always been there.

He let Sephiroth help him off the rope, more because he enjoyed the man's touch than because he needed the help. As soon as Cloud's feet were on the ground they came, in a noisy rush that only gave them a second to prepare. Both Soldiers, finding their backs uncomfortably close to the cliff edge, charged towards the sound and into the woods. The woods were so dense neither could deploy their usual swords and resorted to secondary blades, the foot long, heavy, hacking things that bludgeoned as well as cut. Three came on at once, large bipeds, all on Cloud's side. Cloud dodged the first two, effectively feeding them to Sephiroth, and engaged the third. He was careful to avoid the swipes from long, web fingered arms, not knowing if the claws on the thing were poisonous. They carried antidotes for all known poisonous monsters, but they shouldn't be wasted, plus he'd never seen this type of monster before. It was frighteningly quick and gratefully kind of clumsy.

Cloud managed to stab the monster center of mass up to the hilt of his weapon, and there it caught. This often happened; the blade would cut into a bone and hang up. The trick was to get a foot on the thing's torso and shove it off while pulling your blade back towards you. Cloud did this, quick as lightning before the beast could claw or bite, but he couldn't free his blade. Something in the thing's body cavity had clamped onto it hard. One monstrous arm hit him, scratching his cheek with one claw and Cloud jumped away, leaving his blade behind. He pulled his big Claymore off his back, slicing through a branch overhead as he did so. The branch hit him but he kept his focus on the beast as it charged. He sliced it from above. That should have finished it but unbelievably it still came forward. Cloud swung again from the side and promptly lodged his sword in a tree trunk. He dodged and he saw Sephiroth go overhead, rebounding off a tree to land behind the thing. With a snarl and bright green ferocity Sephiorth grabbed the thing's freakishly big head and with a knee to its spine yanked backwards. There was a crunching noise, once, twice, three times, each time he yanked, and the beast still flailed arms, trying to get at his attacker before it was finally stilled. Sephiroth, panting, stared at the thing on the ground as it twitched. He drew Masamune and finding a clear space to swing between the trees cut off its head.

"I think you got the tough one, Cloud," he said, looking at Cloud's short blade still protruding from the monster's belly and the long vertical slice through part of its face and deep into its body.

Cloud looked back behind him, the General's two monsters were in small bloody pieces. They must have been tough as well to warrant that type of thoroughness.

"What are they?" Cloud asked, working his blade back and forth until it came free of the tree trunk.

"I don't know. They are all three different, but also the same. Same basic structure."

"They look human," Cloud said.

Sephiroth stared at the one in front of him. The sight of it made his skin move around on his body as if it were trying to migrate elsewhere. The head was grotesque with several large flattened structures coming off of it and distorted facial features. But it had a face. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, not a snout. Two arms and two legs, feet and hands webbed and clawed but still clearly feet and hands. He looked again at Cloud. Cloud had a mark on his face.

"Is that a bite or a scratch?"

"Scratch," Cloud said, wondering if he was feeling faint form poison or just imagining something.

Sephiroth picked up one of the clawed hands and examined it. The claws didn't look like they had any structure to deliver poison. He sniffed, then licked.

"Seph!" Cloud said in alarm. Sephiroth waved him off. There wasn't a monster yet that was poisonous to him. But detecting poison was one of his talents, by smell or taste or feeling. He concentrated on his tongue; there was nothing odd. Not pleasant, but no tingling, no "poison" flavor. He picked up the severed head and looked at the teeth and the dark red blood dripping the neck. To Cloud's alarm and disgust he tested both the same way.

"I don't think this one is poisonous at all," Sephiorth declared, "but just in case there's something more subtle we'll take a sample back with us. Once I saw a guy turn purple weeks after exposure."

Cloud frowned. He didn't want to be purple. He watched Sephiroth sever and collect a clawed hand and then hang the two pieces together on some sort of cord. It reminded Cloud of fish on a stringer. Very ugly, stinky fish. . "Do we have to carry those around with us? Can't we just leave them here until we come back?"

Sephiroth shook his head. "Might not be here when we get back. Animals. Other monsters."

Cloud shuddered lightly at the thought of anything eating these. They gave him the creeps. He went up to the thing and pulled at his short blade; it came free easily.

"Where's your backup blade?" Cloud asked, looking around for the General's weapon.

"Monster ate it. I tore him open, but somehow it's gone."

Cloud shook his head. Of all the things he ever thought about Soldier, the advertized excitement and perks, nobody had ever mentioned how weird the job was.

"OK," Sephiroth said, in what could only be described as chipper. "To the reactor?"

They made the reactor with no further monster interference, and Sephiroth pulled a key out of his hip bag. He was glad to have it, the lock on this door would have proved much tougher than the mansion he had broken into earlier. The door creaked open and they walked into the enormous, dark place. Everything in the reactor was gray. Gray metal floor, gray walls with tiny, thick windows that let in the barest amount of gray light. Sephiroth followed the directions Hojo had given him; it was in fact an errand for the scientist they were on. It led them near to the middle of the reactor and onto a cat walk right above the mako pool. Cloud, who had never been in a reactor before, stared down at the luminous green, mesmerized.

"Don't fall in," Sephiroth cautioned, "Raw mako, eats everything."

"What holds it in, then?" Cloud asked.

"More mako. It's bubbling up from the planet itself, the reactor is actually sitting over it and not touching it. All the collection and processing equipment is made of special materials, and even so they have to be replaced annually."

Sephiroth had taken a small box out of his gear that contained several small vials. He uncapped one and waved it around in the air, looking as ridiculous as he felt.

"That's the air sample collection method?" Cloud asked.

Sephiroth shrugged in a way that indicated he was also skeptical. "That's what the madman said."

They moved along the catwalk, taking three more samples at the prescribed locations, labeling each one carefully before packing them away.

"That's it, we can go." Sephiroth said, turning them back towards the door without seeing or even sensing the vaulted room labeled "Jenova".

**Nibelheim always sounded Germanic to me so I used some German words for Cloud's home, even though I suspected Norse origins like so much of FFVII. It was also familiar so I checked the web. Wikipedia thinks Nibelheim it comes out of the Norse mythology city of Niflheim, but it may not have been SE that came up with the word. The German composer Wagner uses the word Nibelheim to describe a region in Das Rheingold, part one of the famous Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen) The opera gets it's themes from Norse sagas, so Nibelheim may be Wagner's twist on Niflheim. I think the people there are Nibelungen and they're miners. That part was a bit hard to sort out, but I went ahead and called them that. **

**Much thanks to my German speaking reader Johnswinona who helped with this chapter and the last with German names for things like 'highschool' and fluffy pancakes.**


	17. Home Again

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: I forgot about something I wanted to comment on after the last chapter. I read a number of coming out stories for young men on the internet before trying it with Cloud, and one of the things often mentioned was what age the author understood his orientation. There were many in the 10 or 11 yr old range, but none as young as 7. But I didn't just make that up for Cloud, I based it on a someone I know, along with the bit of "I marched right downstairs and told my parents. Who didn't take me seriously, because I was seven after all"**

**I stole from my friend! But I mean it to be a compliment. The lab techs Aaron and Jenkins belong to xXxValentinexXx from her marvelous fic "How many ways can you kill a madman?". Also the image of Sephiroth swinging the sledge one handed and busting things comes from there, #51.  
**

Back at the ravine Cloud discovered the monster remains were in fact gone. Many monsters turned to dust or degraded into goo, sometimes quickly, sometimes in a matter of days. But that wasn't the case here; Sephiroth's samples on a string were still solid. The foliage was still eerily bloody, but something had dragged the body parts away.

With a light touch to the back of Cloud's neck Sephiroth urged him away from the scene. They checked that their rope hadn't been disturbed or compromised in any way, then they took turns scaling it across the ravine.

"Those bipeds looked like they might be able manage a rope crossing," Sephiroth said.

"Maybe they already have," Cloud said. They both looked around, listening. They looked for tracks and saw none on their side of the ravine but their own. If monsters crossed the ravine they were more delicate of foot the ones they encountered.

"Well either way, no sense in letting more of them across." Sephiroth took out his short blade and cut the rope. The rope dropped in a slow arc to where it hung down the other side.

Cloud felt a pang for his rope as he did when he lost any piece of gear. He shook the feeling off; it wasn't like there wasn't rope for sale in Nibelheim. And speaking of things for sale in Niblheim...

"Let's go back into town and get a container and some ice for that thing," Cloud suggested, wrinkling up his nose.

Sephiroth looked around one more time, listening, feeling. There was nothing close that he could detect. He might not like Nibelheim much but he didn't want to be responsible for loosing monsters on it. They would do a little monster hunting later; cover the mountains flanking this side of the town. He held up his grisly prize with its large, flat head pieces and waved it near Cloud.

"Ugh, Seph!" Cloud covered his nose and mouth.

"Don't care for Mr. Fanhead?" he said, and laughed. He turned towards town, Mr. Fanhead swinging alongside him, and Cloud followed. They let themselves half-run, half-jump on the way down the mountain into the valley, the sheer joy of using their legs over rocks and through trees overfilling them like water out of rain barrels during a summer storm. When they entered the town they were smiling, laughing, joking about Mr. Fanhead, and ignoring the disgusted and frightened looks from the townspeople. Presently Sephiroth noticed Cloud was limping.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Rock in my boot," Cloud answered. But he didn't move to take it out. He limped along another minute.

"Are you going to do something about that?" Sephiroth asked.

"Nope." Cloud smirked inwardly and kept walking. It wasn't really bothering him that much, but he knew it drove Sephiroth nuts. It represented some sort of upset to his natural sense of order, like dirt on the carpet.

"Cloud if you don't shake that rock out of your boot I'm going to tackle you and do it for you."

Cloud smiled. That might be kind of fun, but they had reached their goal, the small grocery. Cloud sat on the curb and began to unlace his boot. "There's our store, for the ice and cooler."

Sephiroth, satisfied that the rock situation was being tended to, turned towards the store.

"You going to take Mr. Fanhead in with you?" Cloud asked, expecting that Sephiroth would leave it outside with him.

"Yes!" Sephiroth held the thing up and grinned, a crazy light in his eye.

Cloud laughed, imagining the look on Mr. Murray, the grocer's face. He dumped out the offending rock and began to re-lace his boot. A shadow fell over him, but not a cloud. Too heavy, too sudden, too dark. He squinted up at the three massive forms blocking his sun.

They were bigger than he remembered, and they had always looked enormous to him. Oskar, Dietz, and Karl wore the hard, heavily muscled frames that maturity and hard labor brought them. They had surely become miners, like their fathers.

"Well lookie who it is," Karl sneered. He stood in front of the other two, proclaiming himself as their leader. "Little Cloudy Strife, come back home."

A small piece of Cloud's mind felt the old panic, but the rest of his brain observed the feeling in a curious and detached way. As if he was studying the fear on someone else, on an enemy. Cloud remained seated on the curb, looking up at them, applying that observation now in their direction.

"Guess you're Solider now," Karl said. His tone held no more respect than it ever had, but his eye flicked down the length of Cloud's large claymore.

"Soldiers aint that tough," Oskar said, spitting off to the side into the gutter. The other two nodded and grunted in agreement.

Cloud laughed from his seat on the curb. He laughed a long time; he just couldn't help himself. Ignorance and bravado were such a foolish combination. They had no idea what a Soldier could do, even a little Third Class like himself.

"Why don't you get _up_," Karl said, kicking Cloud's boot.

"You really don't want to do that," Cloud said evenly, a cold, commanding ring in his voice.

Sephiroth had heard all of the conversation, but didn't bother to step out of the store until he heard that particular intensity in Cloud's voice. His Soldier was starting to green up and he needed to take a look at the situation. He saw the three men, miners he supposed, hovering over Cloud who was still seated. Three of them. Sephiroth smiled a little, wondering if they were the same three tormentors of old. He would have liked to see Cloud hurt them, to not even have to stand up and get ready to do it, to swing that claymore Sephiroth had given him right through all three before they could lay a hand on him. But that would be a mess, dead or even injured civilians were always a PR and paperwork nightmare. He could see Cloud was trying to warn them off and they weren't responding, probably because Cloud was outnumbered and smaller than them, and because they just were too stupid to recognize their danger. He pushed his personal desire for pain and blood aside came forward to intervene, just as he would with any other of his men. He casually stood behind Cloud.

"Is there a problem here, Strife?"

"Troublesome indigenous targets, sir," Cloud said, standing automatically, his military deference towards the General snapping into place with the usage of his last name instead of his first.

All three looked momentarily at Cloud, perhaps feeling the discomfort of being identified as 'targets'.

"I see," Sephiroth said. "If you would like to kill them I could go have a coffee or something. On the other hand I might like to watch."

Sephiroth moved forward and Cloud felt himself immediately green up, lighting in sympathy to Sephiroth who had apparently lit as he took that last step. Cloud stared hard at the targets to keep himself calm and focused; he hadn't the experience to afford being careless when he was green. Oskar and Dietz, who had been splitting their attention between Sephiroth and the gruesome Mr. Fanhead at his side, looked at Cloud. Through his bizarrely glowing eyes Cloud could see something he had not seen before, real fear of him. The bright green light inside of him delighted in their fear, letting Cloud know that they had good cause to be afraid. Karl did not look at him, and Cloud knew why. Karl was the one Sephiroth had locked his gaze onto, that wild and terrifying stare that unhinged enemies in battle. Cloud had never had it fixed on him, but he'd seen the result. It gave him all the more respect for the leader of their attackers on New Years, the man who had borne up under Sephiroth's gaze. Unlike that man these young miners were not hardened fighters, they hadn't expected to die today. A dark stain began to spread down Karl's trousers.

"Maybe you guys want to run," Cloud said softly, and Oskar and Dietz spun and took off down the street at a dead sprint. But Karl couldn't move, trapped as he was by Sephiroth's stare. Cloud heard, or rather felt, that vibration from Sephiroth when he was anticipating a kill, the thing that was sometimes mistook for a growl. Cloud knew it came not from Sephiroth's throat but somewhere in his chest, and knowing what it meant Cloud felt his excitement rise at the sound. He wanted it to follow to its conclusion the way he craved a sexual release when he was on the cusp. But enough of his brain was working that he knew he didn't want them to kill some guy in his hometown like a couple of rabid wolves. He touched Sephiroth's arm.

"Enough," Cloud whispered, so softly only Sephiroth could hear. Sephiroth turned his head slightly, the vibration ceased, and Karl was following the path of his friends, top speed away from them. But he stopped about fifty yards away, and turned, regaining some of his boldness if none of his dignity.

"Too bad, Strife," he called from a safer distance, "That your mother's going to be out on the street next month!" Karl then turned and continued his retreat.

Cloud forgot everything he was going to ask Sephiroth, about how close he had been to actually killing Karl, about how much of that 'battle look' he could fake, and instead took out his PHS and dialed his mother. He turned, out of habit, closing into himself in a posture of privacy even though he knew it made no effect on Sephiroth's ability to hear him.

Sephiroth tried not to listen, but he hadn't learned to close those earflaps on command and he wasn't ready to leave Cloud and retreat back into the store. Besides, the store owner had already placed the cooler and ice he had purchased outside the door, hoping no doubt that he and Mr. Fanhead wouldn't be going back in. He heard Cloud ask about the house, was everything OK, then asking why she had taken out a loan, and why she never told him, and then the connection went dead per Nibelheim's famously poor wireless service.

Cloud swore and snapped his PHS shut and tried to think. He had to go see his mother, and it sounded like there were quite a few serious things that needed attention. Not to mention their personal issues. He and Sephiroth weren't scheduled to leave until the day after next. Cloud had imagined so much for this trip, long talks and walks with all three of them, more eating, taking Seph up into the amazing ranges to the south... But he had forgotten how awful the damn town was and now there was this thing with his mother. And here was the General, wasting his time in Nibelheim of all places, and his mother unwilling to interact with him. This was nothing like he had hoped. It had been more like a disaster.

"Seph, I need to deal with some things here. I wonder if you can get transport back early while I stay?"

Sephiroth handed Mr. Fanhead to Cloud for packaging and got out his PHS. He dialed, talked, was dropped dialed again, waited for transfer, got dropped...

"Let's put that thing in the hotel room." Sephiroth said, and motioned for them to walk as his call was put through and he spoke to a second, then third person. He was still on the phone when they unlocked their room and Cloud put their prize on the floor.

"OK, thank-you commander." Sephiroth flipped the phone shut. "I'll be out of your hair this evening," Sephiroth said, an acid note clear in his voice.

Cloud sighed. This was all he needed, for Sephiroth to get some attitude over this. He already had one person to take care of and he couldn't baby them both at the same time, especially given the circumstances.

"Seph, don't be this way."

"And how do you expect me to be when you drag me out here and then tell me to go home?"

Cloud blinked at him in surprise. "Is that how you feel? That I dragged you out here?" Cloud felt his shoulders, face, every piece of skin on his body fall and sag, and heard the waver in his own voice.

Sephiroth shut his eyes, unable to look at the clear pain and disappointment he had caused. "I'm sorry, Cloud. It was a poor choice of words. I wanted to come, to see where you grew up. I'm just cranky." Sephiroth put his forehead in one hand, squeezing his temples hard with middle finger and thumb. It was a gesture that Cloud was finding familiar for this trip.

"Are you having headaches?"

"Yes. Maybe I need to be adjusted or something."

"It hasn't been four weeks yet," Cloud said, referring to the monthly adjustments Hojo gave to Sephiroth.

The older man smiled thinly. "I'm an imprecise science."

"Sit down on the floor," Cloud directed, and Sephiroth let himself be directed. Cloud sat behind him on the bed and put his hands on Sephiroth's head, rubbing with long firm strokes and soothing circles. Sephiroth exhaled deeply and relaxed.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Since we landed."

"The whole time?"

"Sometimes it's better, sometimes worse, but more or less continuous. Except for several hours last night."

Cloud continued his rubbing. "You want to stay in the hotel for a little while?"

Sephiroth smiled, thinking how nice that would be. But they couldn't. He grabbed one of Cloud's hands and kissed it. "I would, but daylight's burning, and I want to be sure we didn't let anything across that rope bridge earlier. I need to do some patrolling. _We_ need to, if you'll come with me.

Cloud smiled, of course he'd come. He'd call his mother and then go see her later, after the General had left.

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"Hmm, you're back early." Hojo looked up from his papers when Sephiroth darkened his door.

"Your samples," Sephiroth said, holding out the small box with the air sample vials. Hojo took them without looking, keeping instead his eyes fixed on Sephiroth.

"Are you all right? You look a little peaked," Hojo said.

Sephiroth scowled. In another man such a question might indicate affectionate concern, but in Hojo's case he knew better.

"I traveled through the night and haven't slept." Sephiroth said.

Hojo continued his scrutiny, apparently unconvinced. "Everything go OK on this trip? Nothing out of the ordinary?"

Sephiroth stared back, keeping his face deliberately blank. It was a skill he had perfected under Hojo's tutelage, when he had learned that everything he revealed might be used against him.

"I had some headaches."

"Are you still having them?"

"No. They stopped while I was on the airship," Sephiroth said, and the word 'airship' rang in his head. Airship. Air. Hojo had him collect air samples. His headaches had been confined to Nibelheim. He had left Cloud in Nibelheim.

"Is there something wrong with the air in that region?" Sephiroth asked.

Hojo leaned forward, detecting the hint of emotion now.

"Why do you care, are you concerned for the indigenous population?"

Sephiroth didn't answer.

"I think not," Hojo mused. "You've never cared a whit about anyone not your own. Did you take one of your men with you? Your young Cloud maybe?"

"Answer me!" Sephiroth said, leaning his menacing bulk over Hojo's desk.

Hojo smiled at Sephiroth, a thin lipless expression that held not mirth but smugness. And curiosity. The level of protectiveness Sephiroth had developed as he matured had been a surprise to Hojo, especially with regards to the boy Cloud. He hadn't expected this subject to have a strong enough connection to humanity for this emotion.

"Was Cloud having headaches?"

"No."

"Then the air is not causing headaches. The air samples are just a scientific curiosity for me concerning the reactor, not a health hazard to anyone."

Sephiroth abandoned his stoic reserve and rolled his eyes. It was always this way with Hojo; he could have said that right off but he had to play these games first.

"You didn't have anything else odd? Pain elsewhere? Vision problems?"

"No."

"Any new neurological issues, balance, coordination, voices in your head?"

Sephiroth scowled at that last one; it wasn't on Hojo's usual list of inquiries. "Are you expecting me to develop voices in my head?"

Hojo shrugged, setting the box with the air samples on his desk. "We should probably check you, just to be sure. You're about due for your adjustment anyhow. I have time now, why don't you get undressed."

Sephiroth clenched his teeth, wondering how three out of what was normally four weeks qualified as 'about due'. They exited Hojo's office just as two of the techs were opening a cooler on a lab bench.

"Ooh, stinky!" Aaron said, wrinkling the freckles on the bridge of his nose. He pulled a misshapen severed head up by some sort of flange attached to the skull.

"Hey, somebody wrote 'Mr. Fanhead' on the box with a marker!" Jenkins said, laughing. He picked up the clawed hand and waved it at his partner, making a growling noise.

"What do you two have there?" Hojo snapped as he walked over to them, either their antics or Mr. Fanhead having caught his attention.

"Um, poison analysis request from Soldier, sir," Jenkins said, handing Hojo the manila folder containing the paperwork. Aaron sheepishly set the severed head back in the cooler.

"Did you request this?" Hojo turned back to Sephiroth, "You found this outside the reactor?"

"Yes and yes. Is there a problem? I believe I have filled out all of your inane forms properly."

Hojo's face twitched and both techs suppressed smiles and glanced at one another. Hojo was an asshole and bastard to work for and the whole company seemed afraid of him. Except Sephiroth. He seemed to just hate Hojo. Plus something about Sephiroth always seemed to grate on the professor's nerves. Sephiroth in the lab was always a treat, so long as you didn't have to see him post-adjustment.

"One of the creature's claws scratched Cloud. It's an unknown so ShinRa protocol states the thing should be tested. I don't think it's poisonous. Cloud seems fine and I taste tested claws, saliva, and blood and detected no poison markers."

Now Hojo scowled. "I do wish you wouldn't do that. Someday you're going to bump into a monster that even you are not immune to. We'll find you out in the boondocks unconscious and too far gone even for me to work on."

"Thank Shiva," Sephiroth said.

Now it was Hojo's turn to roll his eyes. "Go on, get on with your work!" he yelled at the techs, not missing their mirth at the exchange. "And you," he jabbed one bony finger at Sephiroth, "Why aren't you getting undressed?"

Sephiroth gave him a smirk and short bow of his head before heading for the procedure room. He wore the smirk a few moments longer, knowing it would be short lived, sure that Hojo would make it all the more painful for that.

cccccc

Four hours later Hojo reviewed and plotted results on his computer while Sephiroth slept the worst of the testing drugs off. He had to wring him today, a process involving a tank with a specialized solution to draw mako out of the body. It was nothing special; Sephiroth's level was always climbing out of control, he had to be wrung every year or so and it was about time. For some reason that Hojo had yet to understand Sephiroth's body hoarded up more mako than it could use. The wringing process was a low-tech one, and from the way the Sephiroth grumbled he guessed it was painful as well. Rather like getting the bends, that excruciating and sometimes lethal decompression sickness that divers got when they moved too quickly from a high to low pressure environments, causing nitrogen to bubble out of the blood. These 'mako-bends' might be avoided as well by slowing the process, but since Sephiroth was in no actual danger and Hojo couldn't proceed with his testing until the mako level was under a certain maximum he simply opted for _speed_. It still wasn't enough to knock Sephiroth unconscious, and Hojo would have preferred that. Not simply to avoid the constant griping and growling (and once, biting), but he didn't have a drug to knock Sephiroth all the way out. Not to the point where he could collect significant samples off of him. He would have liked a larger cohesive cell grouping, a finger, or an ear. It's not like the great General needed all his digits, he would function just as well either way, but somehow every time a tool, any tool – metal, laser, glass - threatened to remove more than a gram of material his body roused itself enough to stop it. Sephiroth didn't remember these episodes, not in his conscious mind at least. He remembered something though, if the extra suspicion in his glares later were any indication.

Hojo scowled at his data. There wasn't anything new here. He had sent the bugger to Nibelheim, to stand not 10 feet from the main sample and nothing happened. In fact he reported nothing beyond a few measly headaches. He should have reacted to that concentrated proximity- all his lesser samples infused with Jenova's cells responded to any other external large clump of the same cells. They moved towards it, trying to reunite and showed brainwave changes after the experience. Sephiroth was unchanged and had apparently been oblivious. How was he going to find out if the reunion call had intelligent communication as he suspected if he couldn't get an intelligent subject to hear it? He suspected Sephiroth had once heard _something,_ when the boy was very young. When he had him in the Nibelheim facility. The stories of the boy's imaginary friend were too vivid, the invention of the imaginary language too detailed. But Hojo didn't know as much as he did now and hadn't paid much attention back then. What he would give to have those years back! He suspected part of the problem might be that Sephiroth was too old. He'd had too long to incorporate the alien cells into his body. Or he had just gotten too stubborn.

"I'm leaving," Sephiroth announced from the doorway as way of farewell. Hojo waved the surly bastard out of his sight; he'd had quite enough of him and his ungrateful attitude for today.

Hojo set his glasses down and rubbed his eyes. Now _he_ was going to have a headache. He needed another sample, one he could observe while the cell injection was fresh. But so far his efforts to produce another like Sephiroth had been futile, either Gast had left something out of his notes on his part of the process, or, and Hojo hated this thought, there were parameters they weren't controlling affecting the result. Perhaps the infinite variation always present in the mixing of genes that went into making a being lined up in Sephiroth in some way to make him better compatible with the alien's cells. Maybe the odds of getting such a human were extremely low, maybe Sephiroth was a special case, a fluke, unique, even before the Jenova cells were introduced. Hojo eyed the package with the air samples on his desk and pitched them into the trash. They had served their purpose, but gotten him nothing.

cccccccccccccc

The sound of traffic, a couple arguing, a dog barking a block away. Zack Fair slowed his breathing and heart rate to listen better. The buzzing of street lamps, just coming on for the evening, people talking in the building underneath him. A rat scratched and skittered along on its rat business in the alley below. He shut his eyes and reached out with every sense he had, the sense that flowed along the connection of his mako laden body to the life stream itself. Nothing. No traps, no person/thing watching him. Stealth maneuver wasn't Zack's strong point as a Soldier. Usually he was a swinger, the guy they kept in the back until something big and dangerous popped up and then threw him at it. But he was First Class, with more sense and precognition than almost anything on the planet. Except Turks.

He ran at the edge of the four story building whose roof he was on and jumped, landing in a tidy roll on the next rooftop. As he stood up from the roll his uniform tried to remain stuck to the roof.

"Boda," Zack muttered, looking down at his clothes now stuck with a smattering of roofing tar made tacky from the hot day they'd had. Unlike Sephiroth and Cloud he couldn't sense hazardous objects, only things or beings that might attack him. The roofing tar hadn't technically attacked him, but by the look of him one might argue otherwise. He stopped and listened again, closed his eyes and sensed. Still nothing. This was the last rooftop; he had completely circled his target destination. He dropped to the ground in an alleyway so as not to alarm anyone on the street, and managed to splatter himself with putrid water that had leaked out of a dumpster into a pool now under his boots. He stepped away from the water and gave himself a little shake. He was going to make an impression for sure.

Zack came out into the street and pushed open the fancy brass and glass door to La Fonda. He'd been in here once or twice, but only with Sephiroth. It was exactly the type of place Sephiroth liked, expensive, dark, and with well trained and distinctly non-nosey staff. The maitre d' took one look at him and tried to stop him at the door.

"I'm just going to the bar," Zack said preemptively, and gave him a look that stopped the man cold. No matter how nice or prestigious a place, or how concerned they were about their clientele, _nobody_ stopped a Soldier from going where he was determined to go. At least not one like Zack Fair.

He found what he was looking for almost immediately. It's not like he could have missed him, even if Zack hadn't been able see in the dark.

"Hey." Zack sat in the empty barstool next to Sephiroth. There were three empty bar stools on each side of the man, even though the dinner crowd filled the bar until some resorted to standing.

Sephiroth took one surly look at Zack then went back to his drink. "What happened to you?" he asked as he poured himself another; the bartender had given him the bottle. Zack turned the bottle by its neck to read the label and confirm what he suspected from the color: Junon brandy. Seph wasn't fucking around.

"Well, nice to see you, too. Welcome back from Nibelheim and all that. I," Zack said, "circled the perimeter before coming in. On rooftop. Because the communiqué I received saying my commander was in a bar drinking himself into a stupor _by himself_ came from Turk. Had to make sure this wasn't some Turk trap."

Sephiroth showed no emotion, no irritation to this news. Zack hadn't expected it surprise him as the General was a valuable ShinRa asset and Turks watched all such assets. And since it was Zack's job as General's aide to look after him he would naturally be the one they would notify. But Sephiroth looked not just unsurprised, but completely out of it.

"Seph, how much have you had?"

"Not enough," Sephiroth reached for the bottle again and Zack grabbed gently onto its neck. The bottle exploded as Sephiroth crushed the portion he was holding, leaving Zack with the jagged neck as brandy flowed onto the polished bar top. The bumper on the customer side kept the liquid from dousing them and the bartender immediately hurried over with a rag, apologizing. Sephiroth stared at his hand stupidly.

Zack set down the chunk of bottleneck and turned Sephiroth's palm up to see the damage. He didn't think it was possible for Sephiroth to lose track of his own strength like that with just alcohol.

"Did you get adjusted today?"

Sephiroth didn't answer, but the spasms in his throat that told Zack he was holding down bile answered yes.

"Gaia, Seph, you know alcohol is the worst thing for that. And you're out, by yourself no less?"

A sly, cruel smile crossed Sephiroth's face. "You think I'm vulnerable?"

Zack didn't look at him. He busied himself picking the shards of glass out of Sephiroth's bleeding palm. "You forget," he said, "I worry about more than just your physical safety."

Sephiroth looked down at the bar, ashamed to be treating Zack so. He reached over into the bartender's side of the bar and snagged several napkins, carful not to light them on fire. He laid them under Zack's work to catch the blood and glass.

"Where's Cloud," Zack asked, attempting to sound casual. Cloud had become quite adept at handling Sephiroth in his post-adjustment state. But neither he nor Sephiroth was due back until tomorrow and yet here Sephiroth was.

"Nibelheim."

"Did you have a fight?" Zack didn't envy the whole parent meeting thing they were doing, especially given the circumstances.

"No. Yes. Maybe."

"Did things not go well with his mother?"

"No. She responded badly. And Cloud sent me away."

A number of smart remarks ran through Zack's head, along the lines of what was he thinking to go in for an adjustment in that frame of mind, to do the thing that always made him the most depressed? Zack kept those comments to himself and tried go with something more useful.

"And you think Cloud blames you?"

"No. But I have observed the pull of home and family and hometown to be a very strong one."

"Oh, Seph," Zack said, understanding now. Sephiroth didn't understand any of those connections and always viewed them with some suspicion. "No, that's not the way this one goes. When a guy grows up and leaves home and chooses his mate he doesn't go back. He doesn't trade in his future for his past. Cloud's coming back, he's just working right now to try and get the best result he can. For both of you."

Sephiroth didn't look anything like convinced. Zack sighed, the damn drugs Hojo used always left Sephiroth so paranoid that it was hard to reason with him while under their influence. Sometimes the best he could do was just be there, offer up his physical presence for comfort.

"What's the white stuff?" Sephiroth asked.

It took Zack a moment to realize the General was asking about him. Sephiroth probably correctly identified the appearance and smell or roofing tar, garbage juice, and alley dirt. But Zack had forgotten about the other. He was actually more of a fright than he had assumed.

"Oh, remember how I'm always bitching about that wall between the kitchen and living room in my new place? I decided to do something about it. The white stuff from the drywall."

"You are removing walls inside your ShinRa issue apartment? Do you know what you're doing?"

"Sure, it's not rocket science. Come with me, you can help. I'd like to finish and I'm not leaving you here."

Sephiroth nodded, motioned to the bartender who brought his tab for him to sign, and they walked together back to the First class quarters. It wasn't far, fifteen minutes to one of the ShinRa Towers that flanked the main one like satellites. This tower housed middle management and First Class Soldiers. And some Turks. Zack had gotten a sixth floor place and Sephiroth had only been there once. He had a nice view, but the furnishings left something to be desired. For this reason Zack spent more time in Sephiroth's place than the other way around. That and Sephiroth had better beer.

This time when Sephiroth entered the apartment had been transformed. And not for the better. Plastic covered most of the living room and kitchen, and the wall between them looked like it had been in the way of a Soldier brawl. Sephiroth looked at the wall curiously; so Zack was still taking the old wall down. The lower cupboards that the wall had flanked had no back – something would have to be done with that. There were was no way Zack was finishing this evening.

"Do me a favor, will ya?" Zack asked. "Turn your PHS back on?"

Sephiroth stared at him.

"I know it's off, I tried to call you."

Sephiroth took his PHS out, but instead of turning it on he just stared at it. Zack sighed, he was supposed to have it on, they all were, all the time. "C'mon, what if Cloud calls?" He moved around to the front of Sephiroth so the General would have to look at him.

"What if Cloud needs you for something?"

This finally produced a flicker in the green eyes that broke through the drug and alcohol haze. Sephiroth flipped open his PHS and turned it on. A few seconds later the message tone beeped and his face lifted upon seeing the ID.

"Cloud?" Zack asked, happy with himself.

Sephiroth nodded, and, disliking plastic, found a piece of carpet in a far corner to sit down on. He curled into a child-like ball with knees up and head down and started dialing. Zack, not wanting to eavesdrop, grabbed a magazine and shut himself in the bathroom.

Cloud's PHS rang from where it sat at his elbow on the kitchen table. Without taking his eyes off the bank papers he was reading for the fifth time his hand shot out and flipped it open. He answered without thinking or checking the ID.

"This is Strife," he said in standard Soldier fashion.

"Cloud?"

"Oh, Seph! Lemme call you back on the landline, before we get cut off. Or, could you dial me? Phone charges and all."

Cloud snapped his PHS shut and waited for the kitchen phone to ring. His mother had gone to her quilting group and left him alone for a few hours, and he sat back at the table with the clunky, old-style receiver pressed to his head

"Um, thanks for calling me back," Cloud said once they had reconnected, then thought that was a stupid thing to say. "I couldn't get you earlier, is everything OK?" Cloud rolled his eyes at himself, thing that was even _more_ stupid. Why was he thinking anything was wrong? Sephiroth was probably just in some meeting or something.

"I'm fine," Sephiroth said, feeling at the moment that was true.

"Hey, I need some help with something. I don't know what to do. Mom took a loan against the house because she was having some financial trouble lately. Bills for medication she never said a word to me about." Cloud sighed. He wasn't the only one who wasn't telling everything on their weekly phone conversations. "But this loan is one of those with variable interest rates, and you know this last year the interest rates have risen so much... well she's behind on the payments the bank is going to foreclose within the month. The contracts are all clear and she's signed everything, but I know she didn't understand all the details. It sounds like that sleaze of a banker Gleason talked her into it."

"You should kill him," Sephiroth said without hesitating.

"Uh, wow Seph, I thought we Soldiers agreed that we wouldn't be killing people over money."

"It's not the money; it sounds like he needs killing."

Cloud thought for a moment and couldn't argue well with that one. The guy did need killing.

"I don't want to kill him, Seph. Please tell me you have some other ideas."

"You could threaten him with ShinRa. Even as a Third Class Soldier a call from you to the Financial Control Department gets him harassed and audited."

"OK," Cloud said, "I guess that's better than killing him. But I actually try to pretend I'm not part of an evil empire."

Sephiroth thought some more before a third solution presented itself. "We could pay the bill."

"Ugh, it's 50,000 gil. I don't have anything like that."

"I could pay it."

Cloud shut his eyes temporarily. It was tempting, but...

"I can't let you do that."

"Why not?"

"Because to mom it would look like you were trying to purchase me."

Sephiroth laughed a little.

"I mean it looks like you're trying to buy her blessing. Do you understand?"

"I think so. But it's high time I transferred some funds to you anyway. Then you could pay with your own money."

"Transfer funds to me?"

"I do the same with some of my other men, figuring it's better to spread it around in case the evil empire decides to seize my assets for some reason. Zack has 200,000 gil in a bank in Gongaga under his name and the same in another in Midgar."

The bathroom door flew open and Zack emerged, obviously failing at his attempt to not eavesdrop.

"What? I have money?" he demanded.

Sephiroth looked at Zack but continued on the phone with Cloud. "I didn't tell him about it because he'd just spend every last dime."

"I want a big screen TV," Zack said, immune to the insult.

Cloud laughed, able to hear the other end of the conversation.

"You can have mine," Sephiroth told him.

"What?" Cloud said over the phone.

"We're getting a new one, with better contrast," Sephiroth said, pleasing both of them.

"Seph," Cloud said, "How much are you worth?"

Sephiroth had to think for minute, alcohol always messed with his ability to handle numbers. "Maybe, twenty million, including my hidden accounts."

"Gil?" Cloud and Zack asked simultaneously.

"The war was very good to me. In many ways."

Cloud sat at his mother's kitchen table, dumbfounded with the thought of wealth like Nibelheim never saw. Of course it didn't mean anything if ShinRa decided to turn on Sephiroth, they would do just as he said, seize his assets. His real wealth was his connection ShinRa. But still, how much did he have in these hidden accounts?

"You're like a ShinRa," Cloud said.

Sephiroth laughed. "Not really. I do all right. But for ShinRa we're talking about billions, for each family member."

Cloud considered the difference in scale and perspective. To him a million gil was a fortune. A billion was just outside of his imagining. But not to Sephiroth, who obviously thought little of putting 400,000 gil into accounts for Zack.

"I don't know Seph, this is all a little startling."

"I need a car," Zack said in the background and Cloud laughed again. Clearly Zack was not having any trouble with this whole money thing.

"Well," Sephiroth said, ignoring Zack. "Will you let me start with 200,000?"

Cloud was silent. It was still a hell of a lot of money.

"As a forbinde gift?"

Cloud smiled. Money was traditionally gifted as part of forbinde from the richer partner to the poorer, because many laws didn't legally recognize financial right of a forbinde spouse and in the event of death or coma inducing injury access to needed funds could be a problem.

"OK, I'll accept it as a forbinde gift."

"Good. I'll get the account setup here tomorrow morning; you should be able to access the money from the Nibelheim local by..." Sephiroth made his limping brain handle the time zone shift, Cloud was west, that made it earlier there than here, not later. "Tomorrow morning. You'll just need your name and your Soldier ID number, then you can set a new password."

He noticed Zack's eyebrows shoot up in optimism. "That won't work for you Zack, I already set your password."

"What is it?" Zack demanded, "I want furniture!"

"I'll get you some furniture. I don't want you touching that money Zack, it's for emergencies!"

Sephiroth could hear Cloud laughing at the other end and smiled himself. Zack retreated to the bathroom.

"How's everything else, are you OK? That scratch on your cheek healed up? Lab said there was nothing toxic on that beast's claw."

"Yeah, everything's fine now," Cloud let himself sink back into the kitchen chair and relax his body around the receiver. "I should be back on time tomorrow. Oh, gotta go, miss you."

"I miss you too, Cloud."

Sephiroth snapped his PHS shut. "You can come out now Zack."

Zack came out of the bathroom again. "I can't believe you are sneaking money into accounts for me."

"You want me to stop? I still have access to those accounts, I can close them out."

"No, no, wouldn't want to make you unhappy," Zack said. "Here." He held a fifteen pound sledgehammer out towards Sephiroth. "Take a whack at the wall. It's fun."

Sephiroth got up and accepted the sledgehammer. He grasped it one handed and took a swing at one of the remaining two-by-fours. He took out all three, snapped the handle of the sledge, and sent the head into the kitchen where it put a sizable dent in the refrigerator door. The door, deformed beyond its ability to hang straight on its hinges, drifted slowly open.

"Oops," Sephiroth said. "I'll pay for that." He looked around to Zack, mortified, but Zack was already on the floor laughing.

ccccccc

Cloud sprinkled the cheese he had shredded onto the frying pan mixture. He had shredded it with fast repetitive knife strokes because that was what he was used to, even though he supposed there was a shredder somewhere. In Nibelheim they didn't have the hot sausage he had developed a taste for, that Gongagan style with heavy spices that helped preserve the meat in the field or at least mask rancidness from the taste buds. But he had found some ham in the refrigerator and added what spice his nose told him belonged. The potato cubes were browning nicely, the eggs providing a yellow base to it all.

"Since when are you an early riser?" Clouds mother came down the stairs, a pink terrycloth robe cinched around her waist and her blond hair pressed into fantastical shapes by her pillow.

"I'm not," Cloud said, "Least not by Soldier standards. Those of us who aren't learn to fake it. Officers have to be seen as early risers. Zack does the same. He fakes it."

They both laughed a little, a raw and uncomfortable sound. Cloud omitted the next natural comment, that the General, their leader, was an early riser and maybe the cause of this standard. They had tiptoed around the subject of Sephiroth all day yesterday, spending most of their time discussing Abby's situation. Conversations had been unnatural, brittle with the forced politeness of two people who have just deeply offended one another and were making effort to avoid stepping in that tenderness.

"And you cook," she said, pouring herself coffee from the coffee maker and sitting at the table.

Cloud noticed that she was sleepy, and it occurred to him for the first time that she was no more a natural early riser than he. He had been so used to her getting up before him, taking care of him, making him breakfast before school, that he hadn't noticed. Cloud whipped out a plate and set in front of her.

"It's just Soldier hash," Cloud said. "Every Soldier can cook at least enough over a fire to keep alive in the field."

"I guess you really are all grown up," Abby said, melancholy lacing her voice.

"Well, I can feed myself." He dumped a portion of Soldier hash on the plate in front of his mother. It looked like hell, but it was usually-

"It's good," Abby said, genuinely surprised. Cloud sat down across from her with his own plate but he didn't start shoveling food as usual. He kept his eyes on his mother, wondering about all the things they never talked about, and whether the nature of parent and child sealed off those avenues forever. As if his thoughts were broadcast across the kitchen table Abby Strife looked up and straight into his eyes for the first time since their disagreement.

"Cloud," she said, then stopped to study the enhanced color in his eyes. She moved her eyes off of his, unable to hold the new neon blue.

"Cloud, when your father left, you were all I had. I was still mourning for your granddad, I suppose you don't remember..."

"I remember," Cloud said. He had been eight.

"I suppose I coddled you too much, tried to hold you too tightly. "

Cloud's immediate impulse was to negate her statement, but he held his tongue.

"I only ever wanted you to be happy." She blinked away the liquid that was creeping into her eyes.

"I am happy," Cloud reached forward across the table, and this time Abby let him take her hand without pulling away. "I love my life. I love my job. I love Seph."

Abby sniffed and blinked, not wanting to cry in front of her son, her grown son.

"I even like Midgar." Cloud said, and Abby laughed, the quick spasms wringing the stress out from her small frame.

"I never actually fit in here," Cloud added, looking down politely.

"So like your father," she said. "I used to try and convince myself that he was flawed, wicked. Weak. On other more lonely nights I blamed myself. But I think in the end the truth was he couldn't stay here, in this small town. He always wanted more, something different."

A hard look crossed Cloud's face. "He abandoned those dependant on him. No Soldier would do that. Never."

"Your Sephiroth included?"

"Especially my Sephiroth."

She took several deep breaths, struggling with the almost inaudible rasping in her chest. Cloud listened carefully, feeling the effects of his mother's illness, wondering how he hadn't heard it when he first arrived. He reminded himself to ask, pester really, if she was taking her meds on the proper schedule.

"Cloud, I'm sor-"

"It's OK," Cloud said, suddenly unable to hear her apology. He could feel her discomfort because his was the same. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but the thing that was so common and easy in his new life with Soldier, not just with Sephiroth but others as well, it seemed impossible here. It just wasn't something Nibelungen said to one another. So instead he squeezed her hand, trying to send telepathically his understanding of her struggling with his changed appearance, his independent demeanor, the surprise expression of his sexuality.

"I just always imagined you and Tifa being together," she said.

"Oh," Cloud sat upright, a little alarmed.

"She'll be so disappointed." Abby said, now with an amused light in her eyes.

"She'd be more disappointed if she ever actually got a hold of me," Cloud said, then scrunched his eyes shut, surprised and chagrined that he had said such a thing to his mother. But she laughed, and he joined her, and this time there was no rasping, no tension in her body. Cloud managed a few quick forkfulls of food, half his plate actually.

"I want to talk about what to do about your loan," he said once he had swallowed.

"Oh, Cloud, there's nothing to be done."

"I want to pay it off."

Abby blinked, unsure of what her son was saying. "You want to... Cloud, where do you get that kind of money?"

"Well I don't spend anything."

Abby looked skeptical. "It's not from... Sephiroth?"

Cloud filled his mouth with Soldier hash to give himself a moment to think. He could feel the tension returning. She wouldn't accept a gift like this Sephiroth. But he wasn't about to lie either.

"Some of it I've saved," he said. It was potentially true; he had saved some money in his ShinRa account. "Part of it's my... wedding gift."

Abby's face went wild at the word wedding, then contracted as she remembered this was her son and another man. Finally her face relaxed into an overwhelmed confusion.

"It's called a forbinde, it's something two guys can do. It's not uncommon in Midgar, especially Soldier. We're planning on next year."

Abby let her eyes wander around the room. Finally she gave what Cloud could only interpret as a facial shrug.

"Well... congratulations?" she said

"Yeah, uh, that's the normal thing to say."

"Oh, Cloud, I don't want you spending your wedding gift."

"I want to do this. I need to do this."

"No, Cloud."

"Try to think of me as a business partner. The house is worth, what, 120 grand? I'll own a little less than half."

"Cloud, you already have what I have. You're my son. You'll always be my son. No matter what."

Cloud blushed a little, smiling. "C'mon, get dressed, we're heading to the bank this morning."

Abby barely got a look at Cloud's plate before he snatched both his and hers up to be put in the sink. He had finished his meal, three times what she had on her plate, but she barely saw him eat. She wandered back upstairs, shaking her head. Business partner indeed.

cccccccccccccc

"Hey I'm home," Cloud kicked off his boots, encumbered by not only his own duffle but a number of other packages as well. Sephiroth finished rinsing the last of his dishes and dried off his hands on a small kitchen towel.

"You're back," he said, stopping short of coming out of the kitchen.

Cloud dropped his bag and set the other packages on the counter and looked at Sephiroth curiously. He seemed pensive, holding himself away from Cloud.

"Were you afraid I wouldn't come back?" Cloud said, smiling and putting a stop to whatever was going on by throwing his arms around Sephiroth's neck. Sephiroth wrapped his arms around Cloud and squeezed. He held him so long that Cloud had to wonder if his flippant comment was true.

"Seph?"

"Zack said you would. Come back to me."

Cloud looked up, amazed to see sincerity in the green eyes. He wondered what had been going on with Sephiroth in the last day. Whatever it was, he was grateful that Zack was here for him. "You should listen to Zack. He knows more than you do."

Sephiroth laughed and kissed Cloud, thought again about how happy he was to have Cloud back and kissed him again.

"Hey, mom sent you this," Cloud reached behind him and grabbed one of the boxes. Sephiroth knew what it was before Cloud handed it to him, but he held it up to his nose and inhaled deeply anyhow. They were gingersnap cookies.

**A/N: So sorry we didn't spend more time in Nibelheim with Cloud, dealing with stuff or seeing Tifa. It's a worthwhile story, but I have to move on. **

**I'm making up swearwords for Zack rather than stealing them from some other language because I can't figure out what country on our planet Gongaga should be. I try to make up words that sound like Gongaga, because that word the only example of that dialect I have. **


	18. Snapshot 7 Desire

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: I added some content near the end of the previous chapter, so if you were one of the first 550 hits you read something a little different than the most recent hits. I had a nice email exchange with Toons where I started to be unhappy with my portrayal of Cloud's mother's development towards accepting her son's sexuality. My intent was for her to have a very average response, in the beginning to be shocked and behave rather ungenerously, even though she is a good person, and then later slowly become more understanding. But the scene with the money and her house muddied the waters- it implied that her attitude improved through bribery, even if the money technically came from Cloud. The point of the money was to allow Cloud to be take an adult responsibility role with his parent, because part of accepting who he is involves her accepting him as an adult. But since I didn't show that it wasn't clear so added a scene of Cloud and his mother talking about it. What I lost was the surprise element when Sephiroth gets the cookies, but I figured it was a good trade. Can't have everything.**

**We're coming to the home stretch here, but I'm feeling a distinct lack of lemon. So here's a snapshot.**

Sephiroth stretched one leg down, turned slightly, and tightened his arm around the warm body in front of him. His face sunk into something sweet smelling and soft and his mind drifted up from the quiet of unconsciousness. He knew this must have been about 3:00 am; he often came a little awake at this time. It was a good hour; he felt good, dreamy. And as usual he was aroused. Particularly so if he and Cloud hadn't made love in a few days like recently- first he had been out on a sudden mission to a reactor, then Cloud's squad had two late nights in a row. Cloud had fallen asleep as soon as Sephiroth's arms had wrapped around him in their usual position. He was still asleep, his young face peaceful and unlined, relaxed, beautiful. Sephiroth kissed Cloud behind his ear. Cloud moved a little, pushing hands and feet against the mattress so that he pressed his back, and his backside, harder into his bedmate. Sephiroth felt his organ wedge into the cleft between Cloud's cheeks, making his half-hard erection pulse with encouragement. He kissed Cloud again and ran his hand up and down the young man's chest, hoping Cloud might wake. He stroked Cloud's genitals, soft and asleep like Cloud himself. He could fit the whole package into one cupped hand. Then he felt a stiffening in his palm and Cloud moaned, but still he did not wake. He wiggled instead. Sephiroth's need encroached onto his whole body, into his mind. Cloud looked so trusting, so helpless in his sleep. Maybe he could just...

Sephiroth shut his eyes against the idea. He probably shouldn't be thinking that. Maybe it was a violation. But then again it wasn't on his list, his list that Cloud had made for him of things he should not do if he wanted to keep Cloud. There were many items stipulating what Sephiroth should not stick his dick into, and they were all things/people/beings that were not Cloud. This was Cloud, just... Cloud asleep.

"Cloudy, wakeup," Sephiroth said while he still had some ability to reason. Before he talked himself into something.

"Mmmm," Cloud roused slightly, turned over, and fell back asleep. He had effectively removed that particular temptation, but Sephiroth's need still burned brightly. He nudged Cloud's face with his lips.

"C'mon, Cloud, wake up for me."

This time Cloud smiled and opened his eyes a little. It wasn't the first time Sephiroth had woken him in the middle of the night. He stretched a little and nuzzled closer. "Feeling amorous?" he asked.

"Hmm mmm," Sephiroth mumbled, never taking his lips from Cloud's skin. The memory of Cloud sleeping in front of him still pulled at his desires. "Turn over."

Cloud smiled again, rolling back over. He liked this position, especially in the middle of the night. It was so easy. Lazy sex. He reached over for the lube on the nightstand, his hand flopping first to one side of it, then knocking it over before finally grabbing it and handing it to Sephiroth. He felt the cool liquid on his anus, then the gentile press of fingers. When he was new at this he used to clench at the first touch, but now his body relaxed, enjoying the sensations from the many nerves around the orifice, knowing joy and pleasure were immanent. When he was fully relaxed Sephiroth entered him. Cloud still had that bit uncomfortable full feeling, and he expected he always would, but something about knowing it was Sephiroth filling him that made him deeply happy. And that fullness was moving in and out, looking to settle its tip right on that spot... and then everything was perfect. Cloud sighed and let Sephiroth bring a hand around to grip and pull. This was part of the laziness for him. He didn't have to do anything, except enjoy. It was almost like having a wet dream, so sleepy was he, so quickly he could go back to sleep afterwards. He climaxed under Sephiroth's expert manipulations, panting and mewling as Sephiroth thrust to climax behind him. He let Sephiroth do the last bit of work as well, the kleenex cleanup and pulling Cloud over onto his stomach, to lay his head on Sephiroth's shoulder. Cloud smiled, drifting back asleep.

But Sephiroth's mind wouldn't let him go. It was still wondering.

"Cloud, I want to ask you something."

"What?" Cloud roused himself enough to listen.

"How would you feel if next time... I didn't wake you?"

Cloud blinked a few times to make sure he was awake enough for this. "You want to do me in my sleep?"

Sephiroth hunted around for a way to phrase his answer that sounded good. There was none.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Oh I don't know, Seph." Cloud tried to think clearly, or rather feel clearly. Something about the idea disturbed him. On the other hand he was practically asleep already during these midnight trysts. And he liked that. Maybe it would be nice. And something about the idea that Sephiroth wanted him physically so much that he wanted to do that was kind of exciting.

He looked into Sephiroth's eyes, glowing green in the night, waiting and hopeful.

"OK, how about we try it some time and see how it goes? See how I feel."

Sephiroth smiled and Cloud smiled back. If nothing else he would be happy if it made Sephiroth happy.

cccccccccc

A week later found them in the same position, another 3:00 am wakefulness for Sephiroth. He wasn't anything like deprived; they had just made love the night before last. But he hadn't forgotten the new thing Cloud said he could try. Cloud was as socket out as usual and pressed tight to Sephiroth's body. This time he moved slowly, actually trying to not wake Cloud up. He lifted the bottle of lube carefully and silently from the nightstand and rolled just enough of his hips away to coat his member. Cloud actually pushed backwards in his sleep, seeking to rectify the sudden absence of bodily warmth. Sephiroth smiled. His sleeping beauty just made this too easy. Sephiroth carefully pressured and stretched Cloud's opening, then pushed himself inside, slowly, at first just the tip, waiting for a moment, then a little farther. The artificially imposed slowness heightened his anticipation and excitement. He wanted to thrust, and hard, but he was also wild to know how long he could keep Cloud asleep. When he finally sunk his shaft into the base he sighed and reached over Cloud to see what condition he was in. Cloud was hard as a rock. He squeezed and heard Cloud give several sharp exhales. The young man's face was flushing with heat and his lips parted, and Sephiroth couldn't help but lay his own lips onto that smooth cheek and begin a gentle thrusting and stroking. Cloud woke, turned his lips to Sephiroth and spilled out into the sheets almost immediately. Sephiroth followed with his climax, deepening his kiss with his tongue.

"Did you like that?" Sephiroth said breathlessly in Cloud's ear.

"Yeah," Cloud said, eyes barely open. "Seph?"

"Hmm?"

But then Cloud was asleep, rolling over onto his stomach and wrapping one arm and one leg atop his lover, who held him sweetly and kissed him before falling asleep himself.

A few hours later morning spread through the bedroom and they woke, still in the same position. The two smiled sleepily at each other for a long moment.

"Seph? Did I dream that?"

"No. You said you liked it."

"I did, it was amazing. It was like I was dreaming, but dreaming something real."

"Well the amygdaloid complex is active while dreaming, the same part of the brain that's important in acquiring emotionally charged memories. It's what makes dreams feel so intense. It may have heightened the experience."

Cloud squinted sideways at Sephiroth. "You read too many papers."

"And yet I still don't understand why my brain works the way it does."

Cloud laughed. He didn't understand Sephiroth's brain either. "You like having me asleep while you have me?"

"I prefer you awake. But in the middle of the night, in a pinch, I'd rather not disturb your sleep."

"That all? Not excited by my unconsciousness in some way?"

"Mmm. I guess seeing you looking... a little helpless does something for me."

Cloud studied Sephiroth's face, the pale skin and exotic angles that he so loved. "Do you ever get aroused in battle, when you've got your opponent down?"

Sephiroth nodded, cautiously, this was one of _those_ questions.

A disturbing image came to Cloud's mind. "Where's your list?" he asked.

Sephiroth leaned over to his dressing stand and pulled the piece of paper from his wallet. Cloud dug a pen from the nightstand drawer and added an item right under "No calling Cloud 'Cloudy' or 'babydoll' in public".

_12. No masturbating over dead or downed opponents_

Sephiroth watched over Cloud's shoulder, relieved to see that he wasn't changing his mind and forbidding last night's activity.

Cloud looked seriously at Sephiroth. "Have you ever done this?"

Sephiroth took a moment to answer. "Maybe. Once."

Cloud winced. Sephiroth winced back and Cloud put his palms over his eyes, as if to drive out the image.

"Cloud?"

"Just... give me a moment. To process."

Sephiroth waited. He'd seen Cloud do this before when Sephiroth answered questions about his past. So far Cloud had always recovered.

Cloud finally looked up and smiled weakly. Some of this stuff was pretty hard for him to take, but it was easier once he wrote it on the list because he could be sure it wouldn't be happening again. He looked at the list, and as usual told himself that what happened in the past really didn't matter. But he couldn't stop himself from asking about one other item.

"Please tell me you've never done number three."

Sephiroth didn't need to look at the list to remember which one was number three. "No. Once they're dead they seem unclean to me."

"Thank Gaia," Cloud said, falling into Sephiroth's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Cloud. That you keep having to go through this."

"I'm OK. I remember when you said you weren't sexually abused as you grew up, and I'm grateful for that. That you can show me love and tenderness. Our love life is... beautiful. But I think your lack of direction allowed you tried some pretty weird stuff."

Sephiroth shrugged as if to apologize. He had approached the investigation of his sexuality the same way he approached everything- with thoroughness.

"Not disappointed in our love life, are you?" Cloud asked. He felt he was adventurous enough. That thing with the ice cubes and the melted cheese last week had been fun, but a little uncomfortable and messy and he didn't expect they'd be doing that one very often. But it was nothing compared to some of the tales of the he'd heard since joining Soldier, tales of sexual depravity of every kind available in Midgar. Some of that stuff made him a little sick to his stomach.

But Sephiroth laughed. "No, not disappointed. Don't worry; whatever those things are that I've tried I don't need to be repeating them. Many of them were surprisingly unpleasant. And there isn't anything that compares to being with you." Sephiroth squeezed Cloud and received a loving, genuine kiss in return.

**A/N: It's pretty well established that the natural sleep pattern for humans is bi-modal. Historically, and in pre-industrial societies today, humans tend to sleep solidly for a few hours, become conscious or semi-conscious for an hour or so, and then fall back asleep. In Medieval England the two periods of night sleep were called first (or sometimes dead) sleep and second (or morning) sleep. The period of wakefuless was a time of reflection and relaxation, a time to pray or write (if you were an author). In A. Roger Ekirch's book,**_**At Day's Close: Night In Times Past**_** (2005) he states that peasant couples were often too tired after their hard day's work to do more than eat and go to sleep, but they would wake later on to talk and have sex.**


	19. Snapshot 8 Communication

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

Cloud stubbed his toe on the chair as he set his plate on the small but elegant dining room table. He disliked early mornings. He was clumsy, groggy, and his brain didn't work right. At least living with Sephiroth he could eat breakfast in his boxers instead of dressing and heading to the cafeteria. It was a luxury; he knew that and tried to make an effort to appreciate at that he was warm, comfortable, and could take a little more time to wake up as he microwaved some eggs while Sephiroth showered. Cloud showered second. They had tried showering together but it almost always made them late. Cloud smiled. He loved their life, coming home here, waking up with the General, even their little morning routines.

Sephiroth came into the dining area and went into the kitchen, freshly showered and looking alert as he always did in the morning. He was shirtless and Cloud took a moment to enjoy the lines of the man's body.

"Cloud, I want us to separate for awhile," Sephiroth said, pouring his coffee.

Cloud stopped in mid-bite, staring mouth open at the General, eggs still poised at the end of the fork. He frowned slowly, wondering where this was coming from. Things had been going so well. How could he say such a thing? Especially now?

Sephiroth looked at Cloud's stunned expression and set his cup down. "Oh, oh, what did I say?"

Nothing about Sephiroth's demeanor looked like a man trying to break up. Cloud thought about what Sephiroth had said and decided he was probably having another terminology moment. He took a few seconds to form a clear answer, the type easiest for Sephiroth to understand.

"You said that you would like to initiate the process whereby we become no longer lovers."

"Gaia, Cloud, I didn't say anything like that! This one can't be my fault!"

Cloud smiled into this orange juice. The look on Sephiroth's face was well worth this momentary morning shock.

"_Separate_," he explained, "is a word couples use when they separate themselves physically. After separation of hearts and minds has already happened."

"Oh. Fuck. I meant that I need to assign us to work in different locations. For a very temporary amount of time." He came over to the dining room table and kissed Cloud. "I need to be Wutai for a few weeks and you need take your team patrolling outside of Corel."

Cloud shook his head. "_My_ team? Since when do Third Classes have teams?"

Sephiroth only smiled at him. Slowly Cloud's morning brain figured it out.

"Oh. Oh! It's the Second Class trial? I've been nominated?" Cloud said, completely forgetting his eggs.

"Yes. Both Wallace and Major Niven recommended you. Niven's is an especially a hard recommendation to get. I forbade Zack and of course myself from nominating where you are concerned. Colonel Kuhn will be doing your evaluation in Corel; I believe you get along with him well enough."

Cloud beamed at his eggs, at his orange juice, at Sephiroth. Second Class was a big step. Most guys didn't make it out of Third Class because their level didn't stabilize high enough. Cloud's level was adequate (and still climbing), but level wasn't the whole story. A Soldier still had to perform better than average and show leadership talent. And not piss off the First Classes, and Cloud had pissed off Major Niven mightily the year before. Every step of Cloud's progress had been a struggle. He had been a late bloomer as a cadet, then the problem taking in mako, then developed a taste for insubordination. Even being with the General created its own problems rather than making things easier. Plus he had struggled to find his leadership style. He could never emulate Sephiroth's presence of raw power. Cloud's style was quiet and sympathetic, and he had to learn how to put strength behind that without a model for that method. It was something like a cross between Zack's compassionate open style and Niven's quiet control. In fact despite his suffering under the major Cloud had to admit he had learned a lot from the guy.

"You'll get your mission packet this morning," Sephiroth said, "We both leave in two days, but on different ships. I can help you with your patrol plan if you like."

Cloud looked at him suspiciously. "Are you supposed to be helping me with this?"

"It's only the setup. After you're on location I promise to leave you on your own. Besides, it's a selfish offer," Sephiroth said. "I want to make sure I see you as much as I can before we leave."

Cloud smiled and leaned over to kiss Sephiroth, taking time to savor the bitter coffee taste in his mouth. "I'll be home early."

**A/N: I'm easily amused by language confusions. This type of miscommunication could have just have easily been between subcultures, or two people who natively speak different languages. I used to work with this German guy who's English was excellent. He had been speaking it for thirty years (in Germany). But he came in one day and plopped his butt into the chair next to me and said "I'm lustless today." "Uh," I said, "I think you mean listless." It took the dictionary to convince him, because using 'lust' in the broader sense one should reasonably be able to put 'less' on the end and more or less mean listless... he was really quite close but in practical application said something quite different. **


	20. Snapshot 9 Worry

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Gah, this update took a long time. I hadn't meant to write this chapter at all, but after reading some reviews from the last one I started thinking about it, and well, here it is. It centers around a relationship issue, so I think I get to call it a snapshot.**

"Everybody is getting action this week, except us. We're stuck in this shit exercise for a Second Class trial? Fuckin' stupid."

Cloud pretended not to hear the griping of the Third Classes behind him. Second Class trial had been quite different than he had expected and it wasn't going well for him. His main task was to get a team functional, working well together and following his lead, and to do that he had to win the respect of fifteen men who had never worked under him before. Almost all the men were older than him, and many were career Third Classes who would never qualify for the Second Class trial and were not exactly free of resentment towards a young guy like Cloud.

"You hear? Even the General got hit with something from that business in Wutai."

Cloud whirled and caught the surprised man by the throat. He lit his eyes green as he did it, having finally learned that trick of Zack and other higher level Soldiers of greening up on command. His speed caught the man, Baker, by surprise and he startled himself a little as well, but he managed to keep that surprise out of his face. His speed was always doing that to him; every time it took a step up he was a little clumsy with the new quickness until he adjusted.

"You got something you want to say about the General?" Cloud demanded. He figured Baker was just trying to bait him, the man had been snipping at him all week in an effort to undermine Cloud's efforts. Cloud had finally bit at this temptation, but fortunately for Cloud the topic he was most sensitive about was also delicate territory for every Soldier.

Baker flexed the muscles in his throat so he could keep his trachea and arteries open as his neck supported his weight on the grip around his neck. The pipsqueak, as Baker had taken to calling Cloud behind his back, had lifted him clean off the ground. He looked around, annoyed at his teammates, maybe wondering why the brawl he was hoping for wasn't ensuing. A brawl would be perfect; there was nothing further from the functioning team that Cloud was supposed to produce than a bunch of brawling Soldiers. But the men had moved away, watching and curious.

Baker twitched a shoulder, a tiny motion that was a precursor to a strike. The pipsqueak had attacked him first, and technically he was not higher rank than Baker, not yet, he was just his commander during this assignment. But Baker changed his mind when he saw that Cloud had moved, shifted his weight, and the older Soldier was experienced enough to see that Cloud's reactions were ahead of his own. He wasn't privy to Cloud's mako level number, but he knew the guy had to be higher than him, 180 at least, or Cloud wouldn't up for Second Class. The older man was the heavier by at least thirty pounds, but the pipsqueak could probably crush his throat before he could even respond. Baker changed his tactic.

"Injured," Baker squeaked out. Squeaking was all he could manage given the grip Cloud had on him. "I heard he was injured."

Cloud let him down and the men began to mutter all around him. "Injured" in Soldier didn't mean some little slice or sprain. Injured was broken or run through, severed limb or crushed skull, something materia couldn't heal up all the way, something you needed your teammates to help you with or you might buy the big one. Cloud's brain raced off, retrieving for his viewing pleasure any stored images it had from Wutai. They were all from the war, horrific battle scenes of explosions and dismembered bodies. He thought about the Soldiers there who would be surrounding their General. He didn't know the guys in Wutai, at least not personally, but the Wutai battalion was experienced, proficient, and there was no reason to worry. And Zack was there, as the General's Aide he went everywhere with Sephiroth. Cloud just had to force himself to calm down, but his chest kept tightening until it threatened to squeeze off his air. He glared at Baker, who was now making a less than convincing effort to look respectful.

"We head out in ten minutes," Cloud barked, "I want everyone at the gate and ready to go." He walked off, leaving the men to rumor monger on their own. He wouldn't get reliable answers from that crowd, but Colonel Kuhn probably knew what was going on. Cloud was extremely frustrated that he hadn't been getting any information. For the last three days PHS communication had been down in Wutai from the rebel attack and only official calls were going in and out of the base. Cloud lacked the rank to make such an 'official' call and when he had asked the Colonel what was going on in Wutai he had been told kindly but firmly that he needed to concentrate on his own business. Well fuck all of that, he wasn't just some random Soldier with a concern for the General and he was annoyed with Kuhn for treating him as such. He was annoyed with Sephiroth for not sending at least a message. He was annoyed with a system that had no method to prioritize him beyond his rank. What if Sephiroth needed him? What if he was discouraged and lonely as he sat with some deadly wound? What if he were killed, when where they thinking of telling him? Or letting him see the body, how could say his final goodbye if they didn't let him do that? Zack would get Sephiroth's last few moments on the planet, not Cloud. He could feel heat rising in his body despite the chill day, and a bit of wetness clung under his arms as he walked from the drill area to HQ.

He trotted through the command building to Colonel Kuhn's office and knocked on the open door frame. The Colonel was standing behind his desk. Cloud almost never saw the man sit; he always stood to read his paperwork and leaned over to write, as if the act of sitting were simply too idle for the man to tolerate. Kuhn looked up at Cloud and frowned at him. Cloud frowned back, puzzled since he hadn't even accosted the colonel yet. Then he noticed the off-color to his vision that told him he hadn't de-greened before approaching his commander. He quickly lowered his eyes.

"What can I do for you Strife?" Kuhn asked.

"Sir," Cloud tried to make his voice even, but the ragged edge still leaked out. "I wonder if you could tell me... if you have any information on General Sephiroth. I heard he had been injured."

"Shut the door, Strife." Cloud did so and faced the colonel, that tightening returning in his chest. "Soldier, you are already dangerously close to failing your Second Class trial. I've already asked you once to stay focused. Are you sure you want to be asking me this?"

Cloud sighed, thinking how absurd this all felt. All he was asking for was some information. He was controlling his real desire to physically be in Wutai himself, to go AWOL, stow away on a transport or something, hell, even hitchhike or walk. He stared at Colonel Kuhn. The Colonel wasn't a disagreeable man, he was just stubborn.

"You're married, aren't you sir?" Cloud asked.

The colonel's frown deepened. "I hardly see how my personal life is germane, Soldier."

"If you thought your wife might be hurt, would you sit still, here, not knowing? If you weren't doing anything except some time-wasting drills purely designed to further your own selfish goals?" Cloud cringed at his poor wording. "Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to say time-wasting. I mean... non-critical."

Cloud looked down again; soaking in his wretched thoughts while Colonel Kuhn studied him. Cloud was sure he was going to fail right then and there. He'd be sent back to Midgar, which was the wrong direction from Wutai.

"I was going to say, Strife, that the case with my wife is different, that I feel responsible to take care of her, not she of me. But I'm forgetting one of the first lessons of my marriage. When we were first married I didn't feel I should have to keep her informed of my well being or whereabouts. I was a Soldier and had a dangerous life and that was that. It took some doing to get through my thick skull that she experienced real suffering when she worried over me. That I was being both unfair and unkind. And rather rude.

I apologize, Cloud. I happen to know the General is fine, and that is an easy enough thing for me to have said to you. I was assuming that if he wanted you to know his condition he would have called for you. But I was forgetting he is sometimes..." Kuhn paused, unwilling to say the next part.

"An idiot," Cloud finished for him.

Kuhn nodded. That had been the word he was looking for, or something very like it. The General might be a military genius but in the social arena he was more clueless than even Kuhn had ever thought of being.

"I'll tell you what, Strife, I'll make you a deal. If you promise to go out and concentrate on your afternoon patrol I'll see if I can get a hold of General Sephiroth for you, suggest that he should call you later. Maybe I'll share with him what my wife did to enlighten me with regards to this point."

Kuhn gave Cloud a small smile, and Cloud smiled back as he saluted, looking far better than the anxious and oddly gray visage that had come into the office five minutes earlier.

cccccccccccccc

Unfortunately afternoon patrol went no better for Cloud than it normally did. The weather had gotten worse, and the chill wind had taken up carrying needles of small, hard rain to pelt Cloud's team. Several of the guys were acting up, the same ones as always. They never quite did anything he could bust them for, but their constant low level rebellion kept the group from jelling, kept the overall respect for Cloud low. Part of Cloud's problem was he didn't feel like there was anything he could offer them. They didn't need any navigation since all the Corel guys knew this terrain inside and out. He hadn't years of experience to share, battle stories from the war or other notable action. He did feel he had more experience than many of them in some ways, especially dealing with human enemies, because of where he had been stationed. But he knew from his cadet time in Corel that talking about "Midgar" sounded snobbish. And he was loathe to bring up any action he'd been on with Sephiroth, which were some of the more interesting tales, because that would either engender jealousy or unearned deference. He had a few guys that liked him, remembering him from his cadet time here, but they still saw him as a kid, not a commander. He was screwed.

Cloud scowled across the open field at Baker and his partner. They were deviating from their pattern again. There was no reason for it and Cloud was sure they did it just to irritate him. Every time he corrected them they acted like they didn't realize their error. Cloud called a halt and walked over to the pair.

"You two are off pattern again."

As expected Baker put the fake surprise look on his face. He didn't even have the decency to act well. "Oh, are we? Oops."

"You must be tired." Cloud said. "Unload your gear."

"What?" They both said in unison.

"Are your ears not working as well? Maybe I'll recommend you be sent to the lab in Midgar for an exam."

Baker only stared angrily, but the other man, Martin, turned a little red.

"Our ears are fine. Sir." Martin said.

"Good. Take off your gear and hand it to one of your teammates. Maybe unladen you can stick to the pattern."

Now both men scowled fiercely at Cloud, but this was a direct order and Cloud _was_ technically in charge. If they refused outright they would be submitted for punishment. They unhooked almost twenty pounds of beltpack that carried tools, rations, water, and small weapons. They stared forlornly as they held their personal things out in their hands, looking and feeling naked without their gear. Then they selected their victims carefully because no Soldier liked to carry extra even if it was only twenty pounds. In the end they chose to burden their friends, allies in their campaign against Cloud, because their friends has at least some chance of forgiving them. Some of the men chuckled as the designated pack mules clipped the extra weight on.

"Feel better?" asked Cloud of the two sullen Soldiers. Cloud, however, was feeling a little better. "Do I need to divest you of your weapon as well?"

There was a gasp of shock not just from his trouble makers but from others in the squad.

"You can't do that!" Baker snarled.

"Why not?"

"What if there's a monster? We need our weapons!"

"Oh, there might be monsters?" Cloud asked, letting his wide eyed innocent look come through for the first time since he had arrived. "So, the chance of encountering a monster is important enough to keep your weapon but not important enough to keep to the pattern of the patrol? Isn't that why we patrol, Soldier? Because of monsters?"

Cloud said the last part with a hard seriousness in his voice, cutting his eyes into what he hoped was a focused ferocity, lighting them green up for good measure. He waited for an answer because they would have to answer; the entire squad had gathered and was now staring at them expectantly. The team was finally gelled together in their attention and he could feel the welcome difference. And they were rather entertained to boot. He heard one of the older career Third Classes chuckle, and not at him this time.

"Yes, sir," Baker and Martin mumbled, barely audible.

"What was that? Seems I've caught your hearing problem."

"Yes, sir," they repeated, voices raised this time, followed by more chuckling from the team.

"OK, spread out, quickstep," Cloud yelled. The jog would keep them warm and burn off his nervousness. Part of him was electrified from the confrontation and part of him was mortified at himself, but he managed to keep his face neutral, calm, and fair, just like he expected a commander should look.

Ccccccccc

Back at HQ Cloud separated from his sweaty team as they headed into the locker room, figuring it might be better to be apart from them now after that afternoon. He had finally had a small triumph, but it still didn't feel good having to discipline the men. He supposed he would get used to it. He'd have to; a good Second Class should handle most of the small-stuff discipline before it ever came under the notice of the First Class commander. He swung by the office and picked up his mail, which included a large envelope from Colonel Kuhn. He opened it and shook out a keycard. Puzzled he sunk a hand into the envelope and pulled out a note.

**General Sephiroth arriving later tonight via the classified landing area. He'll have the VIP quarters 183, NW corner of Bldg G**.

Cloud found himself smiling as he walked. He picked up his pace to a trot, showered and changed in his quarters, wolfed down supper at the mess, and within the hour slid the keycard through the door for room 183. The suite was nice, a small apartment really. He checked out the small kitchen and bedroom separated from the living area. Then Cloud curled up on the couch, turned on the TV, and promptly fell asleep.

When Cloud woke up he was standing, sword in hand, and blinking into an unfamiliar space. The door that had made the small noise was now swinging open and Sephiroth stepped though to find Cloud facing him, armed with the sword he himself had given him.

"Did you fall asleep?" Sephiroth asked, dropping his gear and kicking off his boots. Cloud blinked, disoriented, thinking this wasn't at all the reception he'd planned on giving the General. Feeling idiotic he lowered his weapon.

"I don't remember waking up, or standing up, or grabbing my sword," Cloud said.

"That happens," Sephiroth said, "Around mako level 190, if you sleep in unfamiliar places your body can respond before your brain wakes up. You'll adjust and get that under control, too."

"Oh. Oh," Cloud set down his sword, but he still felt disoriented, ashamed to have pointed his weapon at the General, and couldn't quite figure out how to proceed. Luckily Sephiroth took no offense or worry from having a sharp, deadly weapon held towards him by any man. He simply took two large steps across the rooms and pulled Cloud into his arms.

"I'm so glad you're OK," Sephiroth said.

"Me?" Cloud asked, confused.

Sephiroth smiled at him for a moment. "I understand you were worried."

"Yeah. Shit yeah." Cloud's face contracted as he remembered some of his earlier agitation. "You couldn't call?"

"I'm sorry, Cloud. I wasn't thinking. Or rather I didn't really… understand."

"And you do now?"

"I think so. Colonel Kuhn did something rather cruel but useful to me."

Cloud raised his eyebrows, remembering Kuhn had said something about 'sharing' with Sephiroth a lesson his wife had taught him.

"The colonel left me a message that I now think was deliberately vague, saying I needed to call him to talk about you. He implied that you weren't well in some way. And when I called him back he was evasive, I was about out of my mind wondering what had happened to you. Finally he admitted that the only thing wrong with you was that your performance might be suffering due to your worry over a certain general. I was so grateful that you were alright I couldn't even be properly angry with the man.

I'm sorry Cloud. I could have called. I should have called. I suppose you heard about the action at the base?"

"Yeah, everyone is talking about it. We heard there were casualties. I heard you were injured."

Sephiroth pulled away from Cloud and shed his coat, then the leather guard underneath. Cloud noticed the rib guard was new, and the coat had been hastily and crudely stitched together in what looked like a field repair. Then Cloud's eyes widened at the sight of a pale red line that traced across Sephiroth's torso from just under the left pectoral all the way to the way around to the backside of the right hip. Lesser lines became apparent as he gazed and reached timid fingertips forward to touch. The lines were made of pink fresh skin, leftover from deep wounds that had been healed by materia. Wounds this deep would still be fragile with the flesh barely knitted together.

"What happened?" Cloud asked.

"Materia bomb," Sephiroth said. "I don't know where they got the lavish amount of materia needed for one since we heavily restrict all of Wutai's access to materia. That will be an issue for the Turks. As for how it got through our perimeter… well we have some things to work on as well."

"Are you sure you should be here?" Cloud asked. Often with wounds of this type the Soldier died, bleeding out before the wounds could even clot. Sephiroth probably shouldn't be walking around. Or travelling.

Sephiroth smiled. "I assure you I'm in fine shape. I'll be completely healed in another day or so. And the situation at the base is under control now and I think I can spare a night for this quick hop to Corel. Plus it does wonders for my mood." Sephiroth kissed Cloud on the temple, then his cheek, working his way down to his lips. Cloud smiled, losing his uncertainty as he saw that touching Sephiroth's skin didn't seem to hurt him at all.

"And how is your trial going?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud's face fell. "Would you be terribly disappointed in me if I failed?"

"I'm surprised to hear you talking like that, but if you do fail you can try again in six months. Not everyone passes their first time."

"I bet Zack did. With flying colors."

"Don't you be comparing yourself with Zack. Zack's big, he was always big because he matured early, physically at least. It's a lot easier to command the respect of men when you're physically larger. He doesn't have to be as smart as you." Sephiroth's face darkened suddenly. "Lucky thing for him."

"Did something happen to Zack? Is he OK?" Cloud asked. He had been so fixated on Sephiroth's safety that he hadn't even thought about Zack.

"He's fine. He'll be in the doghouse with me for a few weeks for making such a boneheaded move. Zack's an excellent Soldier, but he's not perfect. He makes mistakes. You have some talents he lacks. You're not arrogant, for one."

Cloud wondered what kind of mistake was both arrogant and boneheaded enough to land Zack in ill-graces, but he sensed Sephiroth wasn't keen on discussing it. And he didn't think for a moment that Sephiroth would be angry at Zack for anything like a few weeks. More like a few days. Or less, the General was brutal in tearing men up over their errors but actually forgave rather quickly provided they made efforts to rectify them.

"If I could only get some action, an attack or a disaster, I might be able to _do_ something and show what I know."

"Hmm mmm. Don't worry." Sephiroth had buried his face in Cloud's hair.

"What, are you going to arrange for an earthquake or something?"

"Something will come up," Sephiroth said, his hands now finding their way under Cloud's shirt. A pleasant chill ran up Cloud's back and he lifted his chin to give Sephiroth better access to his neck, feeling heavenly warm lips gently brush his throat.

"Are you sure you should be doing this?" Cloud asked, his fingertips feeling the slight ridges of the still healing seams on Sephiroth's torso.

"Cloud, I'm fine." He squeezed Cloud, lifting him a little, and Cloud heard, or rather felt, Sephiroth wince from the effort.

"Seph," Cloud scolded. "You need to rest."

"I _need_ you." Sephiroth touched both hands on Cloud's cheeks with caresses that silently pleaded. Cloud felt the big seam across Sephiroth's stomach, the one that must have cut him almost in half. The heated line of flesh pulsed slightly.

"How about you stay still, and I could uh..." Cloud whispered the rest in Sephiroth's ear.

Sephiroth shut his eyes, smiling at a nature that caused Cloud to still sometimes whisper sexual suggestions. "I'd like that. But I also want to be inside you. I want all of you." He increased his attentions, nipping Cloud's ear in a way that he knew made Cloud a little crazy and trailing fingertips so lightly along Cloud's spine that they barely touched and rose goose bumps to travel along the skin under them.

Cloud sighed, unable to resist Sephiroth and the call of his own body both. He lifted a little and pushed his erection into Sephiroth's, then turned his head to kiss. The heat from the kiss spread down his neck, and when Sephiroth ventured forward with his tongue Cloud closed his lips around it and sucked in suggestively, extracting a moan from Sephiroth. Cloud released him and smiled, knowing that was going to make Sephiroth re-think choice to take his final pleasure anally rather than orally. But if anal was what Sephiroth wanted Cloud had an idea to keep from overtaxing him.

"C'mon," Cloud said, taking Sephiroth's hand and pulling towards the bedroom. "I have an idea."

Once clothing was shed Cloud directed an amused and curious Sephiroth to lie on his back on the bed. The General reached over with one long arm and picked up a new bottle of lube from the nightstand and rolled the smooth plastic surface around in his hand. It wasn't their brand and Cloud hadn't been expecting him before today. He smiled, guessing that Cloud had bought it at the commissary when he heard he was coming.

Cloud kissed and caressed and stroked Sephiroth's skin. He treated him to some of the suction he had teased with earlier, pulling up on the hard shaft with his lips and then taking the entire length into his mouth. Sephiroth shifted under him, bringing one palm up to caress the small of Cloud's back, then over his backside and down the back of one thigh, the muscles tense with Cloud's work. He let his hand wander lazily under Cloud's hips to gently fondle flesh so rife with nerves that Cloud shuddered at the brushing touch. Sephiroth sat up to wrap his arms around Cloud, thinking to hoist him over to where he could better return the favor.

"Oh no you don't," Cloud said, guiding Sephiroth back down. "You be still."

Sephiroth lay back down and watched as Cloud crawled over him, straddling but facing away.

"I saw this one on the infoweb," Cloud said.

Sephiroth laughed. "Have you been watching porn on the infoweb?"

"It's educational. Lube?" Cloud now had himself poised like a crab over his lover, and Sephiroth poured a pool of the liquid in his hand, took a moment to enjoy stroking it on himself, and with another small dollop on his fingertips his pressed and pressured upward into Cloud's opening. Due to his athletic posture Cloud's sphincter was pretty tight, and Sephiroth moved and massaged.

"You're tight," Sephiroth warned, and Cloud laughed a little.

"Well, just let me settle in here, umph, uh, there." Cloud laughed again as his backside met Sephiroth's hips with Sephiroth deep inside him. He started a cautious rhythm of lifting and lowering, Sephiroth's hands holding onto both of his glutes and feeling the muscles work. It was a fantastic feeling, and the view was erotically and wonderfully new for him. But he was held back by knowing Cloud wasn't able to relax and enjoy in the same way. He eased the angle by sitting up and wrapping one arm around Cloud's midsection and curling fingers of the other hand around Cloud's erection.

"Seph, you're doing it again, you're not lying down."

"I can't help it; tonight I need you to come together with me."

Cloud gave in as the pleasures in his body conspired to erode his resolve. He tucked his feet under him on each side of Sephiroth's hips so he could lift just using his thighs and let Sephiroth handle the stroking he needed to his organ. In another minute they were both groaning together, sweating against one another, and Cloud threw his head back against Sephiroth's shoulder as they followed one another into ecstasy. Then Sephiroth lay back, and Cloud felt the sudden coolness on his back as sweat slicked skin slid apart, sticking a little.

Cloud frowned; as far as he knew sweat was not sticky. He lifted himself free and swiveled around.

"Oh, Seph!"

Sephiroth raised his head and looked at what so alarmed Cloud, which was apparently himself. He was streaked and smeared with blood roughly following the healed wounds.

"Oh. The seams are leaking a little. That happens; it's not a big deal. It's probably already stopped."

Cloud was hardly mollified by this and jumped up to grab a damp towel out of the bathroom. He returned and gently cleaned the blood from Sephiroth's skin, growling a little when Sephiroth tried to help. He nudged the General upright to do the same for his back, and then let Sephiroth help him clean up what had smeared onto his own back. He noticed some blood had already transferred to the sheets.

"Housekeeping is going to wonder what you were doing in here," Cloud said.

"Well they won't know it's me since Colonel Kuhn arranged for me to come in quietly. He was very clear that if I showed my face it would skew your trial and he would fail you straight off."

Cloud touched and examined Sephiroth's skin to see in fact that the bleeding had stopped, and was glad for the Colonel's arrangement of things. Not only for his trial, but also he wouldn't want people thinking Sephiroth was so rough on him that it was Cloud who had bled on the sheets from the penetration. Sephiroth of course wouldn't give a damn what anyone thought, but Cloud didn't like people thinking ill of him.

"All done," Cloud said, "You look tired."

"I just need a little extra sleep," Sephiroth said, settling himself back down and adjusting his pillow. "Come here."

"No, you just lay there and rest. I don't want to be leaning on your chest. I'll be right here."

"Please, Cloud. I need to hold you."

Cloud looked into Sephiroth's eyes, and seeing anxiety and pleading there he thought how that was the third time Sephiroth had used the word 'need' this evening. This was more than just a sexual craving.

"Seph, what happened?"

Sephiroth let his gaze cross the ceiling and wet both his lips, thinking, composing. "During the war it was commonly said of me that I had a death wish, owing to my apparent recklessness in battle. I of course repudiated such statements, maintaining there was value to a forceful offense. And that is true." He smiled a little, still keeping eyes fixed far away. "But it was also true that I didn't much care if I lived or died. I was enjoying myself for the first time in my life, but I couldn't escape that most of my life was a memory of pain and loneliness and terror.

When the attack started three days ago I fought as I always have, but I felt different. That bomb came through and I thought, not for the first time in my life, that I would die this time. I was frightened. For the first time I could ever remember I was frightened of my own mortality. "

Cloud smiled a little, and Sephiorth frowned at him, wondering what was worth smiling at.

"That's good, Seph. It's normal, healthy normal."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It means you value your life, the life you're living, enough that you don't want to give it up."

"I don't want to give you up."

Cloud scooted himself closer and found a spot clear of slice marks on Sephiroth's shoulder to lay his head on. He let Sephiroth snake both arms around him, and before he could whisper an 'I love you' in Sephiroth's ear the General was asleep.

Ccccccc

Cloud woke early, earlier than he needed to for his day, owing to the early hour in which they had retired. He was amazed to find he had woken before Sephiroth. This almost never happened, and Cloud took the opportunity to watch Sephiroth sleep, letting his mind cement the familiar lines on the face he never wanted to forget should, the Planet forbid, something happen to him. As he watched the General's eyes flew open with such suddenness that Cloud gasped a little.

"Door," Sephiroth said, then seemed to wake more fully and smile at Cloud's confusion. In another second there was a knock on the door. "Get that, please."

Cloud quickly put on his pants, shaking his head. He'd never seen the General's precog activate for a knock at the door, which he presumed was not an enemy attack since he had been sent to answer it. Maybe it was because Sephiroth was asleep, maybe he always woke up in that fashion. Cloud, who had seldom observed Sephiroth waking, didn't actually know. Either way he figured it beat launching yourself awake with sword in hand due to an innocuous noise.

Cloud, shirtless and bedheadded, opened the door to a conspicuously dressed-for-business Colonel Kuhn.

"Sir!" Cloud said, straightening up, and then was surprised to see Kuhn do the same.

"Sir!" Colonel Kuhn said as Sephiroth came into the living area in his boxers. Cloud looked from one to the other, then decided on keeping his eyes lowered. He could feel his face hot with what he was sure was a bright red flush even though he wasn't sure why he should be embarrassed. Surely the Colonel knew he would be in here with Sephiroth since it was he who sent Cloud the message. But he couldn't help himself feeling odd to have an official visit while he stood half naked, still warm from bed, and with a bit of wetness from last night's donation leaking down the inside of one thigh. From what he had glanced of Kuhn, the colonel was also a bit uncomfortable with the scene.

"At ease you two," Sephiroth said. He seemed to have no qualms about standing around in his boxers; it was one of the things Cloud admired about the man. He could probably hold a war council naked and expect to be taken seriously.

"Cloud, why don't you get dressed?"

"Yes sir, thank-you, sir," Cloud said, before he could set the casual/military switch in his brain properly. That had been an informal suggestion that had used his first name, so it cued for casual, but he had responded military. He shook his head at himself as he went into the bedroom, wondering if Kuhn was going to assume all his interactions with Sephiroth were that formal. As he cleaned up and dressed he could hear them speaking.

"I'm sorry if I'm early, General. I assumed you'd be up."

"Normally yes, I've just been taking some recovery sleep."

Kuhn's eyes flicked down to the marks crisscrossing Sephiorth's skin, following in particular the big diagonal one. He let out a low whistle and reached forward, glancing up at Sephiroth to make sure the touch would be allowed. Sephiroth nodded and Kuhn set three finger pads lightly to the faint pink line.

"These are almost done. They were pretty bad?"

"Pretty bad."

"You've been taking care of yourself, right?"

"More or less."

Kuhn frowned his dissatisfaction with this answer. "Why isn't Zack with you?"

"I was unhappy with him. I left him in Wutai on cleanup duty."

"General, for those of us First Classes who can't physically stand by you, it's an incredible comfort to know that one of our rank does. That doesn't do anyone any good if you don't keep him with you. You don't live in a vacuum, you know."

Sephiroth smiled a little and glanced to where he heard Cloud turn the shower on. "I'm figuring that out. And by the way, Colonel, if you ever call me again and leave inadequate or misleading information on the phone you'll have to find a new hide because I'll have peeled yours off."

"Yes sir," Kuhn said, lowering his eyes.

"And thank-you."

Kuhn was silent, unsure how to answer that one. "You're welcome" would be the normal response, but Sephiroth had never been anything like normal.

When Cloud returned Sephiroth had already finished a quick summary of the Wutai situation and Kuhn was reporting on operational status of the Corel base. Cloud listened, trying to remain unobtrusive, and was mildly amazed at the number of things the Colonel had to stay on top of for a base the size of Corel. Kuhn's PHS rang, he checked the ID, with an apology accepted the call. Sephiroth motioned for Cloud to come over so he could stroke his head and touch his cheek. He frequently did this around his First Classes so they might see the nature of their affection, to be comfortable with it, to accept the seriousness of the connection. Cloud also suspected the gesture had a possessive tone, as if the General were broadcasting "mine!" and there wasn't anything that Cloud would be able to do to subdue that impulse below its current level.

The seriousness on Kuhn's face attracted both their attention, and when he concluded the call he smiled a little.

"We have a monster attack."

Cloud, hardly able to believe his wish for action was coming to fruition, almost jumped out of his skin with excitement as both older men smiled at one another.

"Anything you need help with Colonel?" Sephiroth asked.

"Nope. It's just the right size."

Cloud looked from one to the other, excited but confused as to what the private joke was.

"Cloud, your team is taking this one," Kuhn said, "Get them together; there's a truck ready at the motor pool already.

"YES!" Cloud said with a little jump in the air, forgetting all dignity. He pushed a button on his PHS that sent the signal out to each team member, grabbed his gear, kissed Sephiroth, and stopped short in the door. Both men were still smiling at him.

"How did you know?" he asked Sephiroth.

"I didn't. Second Class trial doesn't conclude until the team sees some action."

"Oh," Cloud said. He had been told, erroneously, that the trial lasted two weeks. Apparently the truth was he could have been stuck in Corel for months. He decided he could bitch about that later and took off running.

Kuhn returned his attention to his General, warmed to see him smiling at Cloud so.

"He's competent," Sephiroth said. "And tough, with good fighting experience. He doesn't need it, but… will you keep an eye on him? So I don't worry?"

Colonel Kuhn smiled. "Of course."


	21. A New Development

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: Boy, I wanted to write a love letter from Cloud that he could sneak into Seph's pocket while Sephiroth was talking to Kuhn. But I guess I have no idea how to write a love letter. Somebody else will have to do that one. So we move on.  
**

Cloud Strife whistled a little as he walked down the hallway in his new Second Class purples. He glanced down his own side, catching the dark sheen of the color on one trouser leg. How Zack had smiled at him in this new uniform, saying how many memories he had in Soldier while wearing the purple of Second Class. He, like Cloud, had spent relatively little time in Third Class blues. Cloud would be Second class for at least two years while his mako level and finer skills continued to creep up. He knew he wanted to be First Class some day, to be put in Sephiroth's inner working circle, but he had so much to learn before taking that responsibility that he was in no hurry. Today, strolling down the hallway in the main training area, he couldn't have been happier.

He stopped just outside the door to the main training hall, hearing something strange on the inside. It wasn't the sound of wood-on-wood practice weapons, or of thumping of feet (or other body parts) on the floor, or even the sound of steel hitting steel of live weapons. Sometimes the guys liked to do that, crazy though it was. The General allowed it but disapproved, not so much because of the danger but because it blunted the weapons and tended to drop tiny metal splinters on the wooden floor that dug in and marred the surface.

Currently it was the General and Zack who were in there, and Cloud had come by to watch. But he didn't hear any activity. He heard Zack talking, slow and calming, but with an edge of tension. And something like the cross between a growl and a moan that Cloud identified as Sephiroth.

With anxious heart Cloud slipped into the room, where he saw Zack and Sephrioth huddled in the middle of the big floor. Sephiroth was almost in a ball low to the floor and Zack was on one knee, hand on his General's shoulder.

"Maybe it doesn't mean anything," Zack said, his face constricted, his voice earnest.

Cloud now saw blood on the floor, maybe from some cuts he could see on Zack, but it seemed to be more under Sephiroth. Both Soldiers still had weapons in hands - live steel. The General may have disapproved of live weapons for normal practice but Cloud had noticed he had a tendency to do as he pleased.

"What happened?" Cloud asked, stepping closer.

Both their heads shot up at the sound, surprising Cloud that he had snuck up on them like this. Maybe his stealth skills had really gotten that much better, but he decided it was more likely that they were uncommonly distracted. Plus he had the advantage of the big noisy and scent dispersing fans high above them.

Sephiroth looked at Zack and shook his head, speaking so low that Cloud could barely hear.

"I don't want him here."

This caused Cloud to take another step forward, thinking maybe something was really wrong, maybe Sephiroth was actually hurt, and acting up, like he always did when he was hurt.

"Tough," Zack said. "He's here. This thing may not go away. You gotta show him."

Sephiroth looked up, his eyes full of anguish and bottled fury. Cloud stepped closer, noticing the blood pool was actually dripping off of Sephiroth's right coat sleeve. The black leather was slick with it. Behind him there was more black than his coat could account for. He was leaning against something, a big pillow? The image made no sense.

"I'm sorry, Cloud," Sephiroth said, riveting Cloud's attention with the heartbroken sound of his voice. "I wanted to be strong for you, I'd hoped I wouldn't..."

Behind Sephiroth the black pillow rose and expanded as it reached a dozen feet into the air until delicate tips spread and fanned out. A single feather, shiny, jet black, and graceful, flitted to the floor. Cloud stared, open mouthed in wonder and reached up to touch the plumage. He laughed a little despite the mood as he ran fingers through it. The thing was gloriously beautiful.

"There, see, he likes it," Zack said.

Cloud looked at Sephiroth, who returned his gaze, puzzled. Cloud recognized this wing; it was similar to the one he had seen on the rogue Soldier Genesis, and although Genesis had looked plenty lively to Cloud, Sephiroth believed that he and the other project Soldier had degraded. Cloud knelt down to where Sephiroth still sat hunched on the floor.

"Does it mean you're degrading?" Cloud asked, managing with some struggle to keep his tone brave and even.

Sephiroth shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them Cloud found them as bright and vibrant as usual, and he couldn't believe Sephiroth could be sick in any way.

"Angeal and Genesis each sprouted a wing before they did so, before they degraded. Before they went mad."

"Angeal wasn't mad," Zack countered.

Sephiroth rolled his eyes. This was an old argument.

"And it's not clear that he would have degraded, if he hadn't..." Zack stood and turned abruptly away, pulling at some of the hair on the back of his head. Then he turned back, his face sad and tired.

"Please don't do that, Seph. Don't give up on me. I need you. Cloud needs you."

Sephiroth looked at Cloud for a moment before reaching up to touch one delicately colored cheek. He wasn't sure that Cloud needed him, but the young man was looking at him with such utter hope and trust. And he had made Cloud a promise. Sephiroth sighed.

"Well Genesis seems to have overcome his degradation at least, although I still think he really is mad." He shot Zack a look. Zack shrugged.

"Actually Genesis always was nuts," Sephiroth admitted. "I'll have to show it to Hojo."

All three grimaced.

"Can you move it?" Cloud asked, "I mean can you fly with it? Because if you can you could catch Genesis next time."

Sephiroth smiled a little. That was true if he could get the thing under his control. So far he had lived his life with two arms and two legs and suddenly he found himself with an extra appendage. With some experimentation he managed to get the thing to lift away from him by imagining stretching his shoulder out and away. He tried a tentative 'flap', what he expected would be a sharp motion downward. The wing shuddered, he got a cramp in his back, and it came down and hit Cloud in the face, rolling him over. Zack laughed, and held a hand out to Cloud.

Cloud accepted the hand and pulled himself up, smiling. He'd never been knocked over by feathers before. Sephiroth also stood and gave the wing a few more tries. Zack and Cloud backed off to a safe distance as the great black wing rose and fell, swept in sideways arcs, and moved spasmodically, creating quite a bit of wind that ruffled the hair of all three men but not doing anything like flight. Sephiroth frowned with concentration, trying to sort out which nerve pathways were controlling what. Finally he found one movement that pulled him upward at his shoulder. Not enough to lift him off the ground, but it was a start. He looked up and smiled. Zack and Cloud decided it was safe to approach.

"Not so bad, huh?" Zack said, reaching up to touch some of the feathers himself.

Cloud put both hands back on the black feathers. Some areas were spotted with blood. Especially near the attachment.

"Is it going to bleed every time it comes out?" Cloud asked.

Sephiroth looked to Zack; he'd seen the other two deploy their wings far more than Sephiroth ever had.

"I don't think so," Zack said. "Angeal's was white and I never saw a spot of blood on it. I think that blood is from the slice I gave you. Maybe the trauma brought it out."

Cloud's eyes widened. "He got you?"

Zack grinned proudly and Sephiroth smiled. "Yes," Sephiroth said, looking down at his shoulder and puling at the cut in his coat so the skin could be seen underneath. The wound had stopped bleeding and already had a thin scab on it. In Soldier standards it was just a scratch, and Zack was right; it wasn't quite where the wing had come out. As Cloud studied the wound Sephiroth caused the new wing to come forward and wrap clumsily around Cloud and pull him close to his body. That was rather nice, and it made Cloud smile again. But he'd have to learn to put the thing away; he couldn't go walking around ShinRa like this. If nothing else it was definite hazard to office work. Sephiroth imagined papers and potted plants and fax machines being unceremoniously dumped onto the floor wherever he went as though he were some unruly chocobo set loose indoors.

Sephiroth brought the wing out behind him and then tried to think about pulling it forward back into his body. It hit him rather hard in the back of his head instead. He tried again, this time thinking about sucking down with his diaphragm. The wing abruptly disappeared. He slung his arm around Cloud.

"How about you help me get cleaned up?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud beamed at him.

ccccccccccccccccccccccc

"Well, _General_. How nice to see you." Hojo turned to Sephiroth and leaned one hand on a lab bench, his voice thick with false politeness. "Since it's not time for your monthly appointment I presume you have come to harass me over something. I'm not hoarding any of your men down here. Maybe you've thought up some new demand regarding the scheduled enhancements?"

Hojo turned and walked between two benches, motioning with a curt wave of his hand that Sephiroth should follow and talk as they walked. Sephiroth gritted his teeth. Hojo had always been this way, making it clear that his business was more important than whoever he was talking to. They stopped at a laboratory oven where Hojo opened the glass door and methodically checked some sort of indicator strip on each of several petri dishes.

"I came to see you," Sephiroth said. "For you to see me."

Hojo actually stopped what he was doing, shut the oven door and looked at Sephiroth.

"Voluntarily? Put yourself in my care? How extraordinary. There must be something wrong with you."

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes, fantasizing how much he would like to hit Hojo in the head. He could actually feel the blow in the back of his knuckles, including the distinctive sudden yielding of breaking bone. But Hojo wouldn't provide any answers unconscious. Or dead. So instead he calmed himself, took off his big leather coat, and laid it neatly on a bench. He had no worry about soiling it; Hojo's benches were always spotless. Then, standing bare chested under the cold fluorescent lights, he commanded the wing out, carefully despite his desire to send it out in a destructive flourish and break as many things as he could. He always wanted to break things in the lab.

"Ah," Hojo said, adjusting his glasses on his narrow, angular nose. "I was beginning to think you were defective. It appears you are just a late bloomer. Of course you are younger by a few years than the other two, but you were ahead in development of everything else."

"Are you telling me you expected this? This THING?" Sephiroth gave the wing a disdainful shake, forgetting his recent enjoyment of it.

Hojo walked over to another bench and started picking test tubes out of a rack and scrutinizing them. "The treatments to which you were subjected without fail spurred wing or wing nub development in all lesser subjects. When Hollander's two sprouted wings on one side, I expected the same from you. I had hoped for two." Hojo scrutinized his favorite project. The project he alone knew was his only son. "Maybe another one will develop in time."

Sephiroth frowned. He wasn't sure he wanted two. Though surely two would be better than one for flight; with only one he was worried he would only fly in circles. So far in his practice he had barely gotten off the ground, nothing like the graceful lofting he had seen from Genesis. In fact he was feeling quite a bit like the slow child.

"Are you feeling normal otherwise?" Hojo asked, giving one of the testubes a practiced shake.

"Yes."

"Well I suspect you're worrying unnecessarily. You always were one for fretting. But let's just give you a blood and cell check to be sure. Over to the test area, please."

The black wing collapsed next to Sephiroth's torso as if seeking protection, belying its owner's anxiety even though the practiced face and body showed nothing. Hojo noticed and smirked. Resenting Hojo and his superior antics Sephiroth turned and walked directly over to the attached room, the one with the operating tables and equipment for dealing with specimens. He sat on one of the tables and stuck out his arm, deliberately not looking at the selection of tools and instruments all around him. All were sharp, metallic, and evil looking. Traits he loved on weapons wielded by warriors in the honorable heat of battle. Something about the patient's helplessness imposed by the medical usage of such things disturbed him deeply.

Hojo opened an iodine pack and held it aloft, and when Sephiroth put his out hand Hojo dropped it in for the General to swab the area inside his elbow himself. With practiced quickness Hojo wrapped the rubber tie around Sephiroth's bicep and opened a blood draw needle from a plastic package and slid it into the swollen vein.

"Squeeze," Hojo said, sounding bored.

Sephiroth slowly opened and closed his fist until Hojo had four of the releasable vials filled. Then Sephiroth pulled the needle free of his arm himself and pitched it with unnatural accuracy through the slotted opening in the sharps container. Hojo peered into his eyes with an instrument and a bright light, and then poked something into one ear. Sephiroth felt the thing Zack called an 'earflap' close around it. Then there was a sharp pain as a bit of it was ripped out. Sephiroth squinted in annoyance.

"I'm sure that'll heal," Hojo said, peering down his nose at the sample he had collected at the end of his device. "I need the sample for the work on the new ear mods."

Sephiroth sat still while small chunks of himself were removed from various other places, including the new wing. These were nothing, insect bites, mere annoyances. As long as Hojo didn't want to...

"I'd like a bigger sample of the wing for analysis," Hojo said.

"No."

"Why do you object? You don't even like the thing."

"If it's going to be following me around I prefer it not be all chewed up and mangy looking."

"I swear, you are the vainest of all creatures." A hostile silence ensued as Hojo kneaded and prodded at the opposite shoulder.

"Was the wing's emergence precipitated by anything, an event or activity?" Hojo asked

"I had a tip graze close to, but not exactly coincidental to the emergence point."

Hojo scowled. Sephiroth's language was still scientifically precise, but to Hojo's annoyance he had absorbed language specific to Soldier since he had been released from the lab. "Tip graze? You mean an injury?"

"Yes, a non-serious slice from a blade, approximately three inches in length and three quarters of an inch deep at it's maximum. It was here." With two fingers Sephiroth denoted the ends of where the slice had been on the front side of his shoulder. Not a mark remained.

"Hmm, it's possible when the mako flowed to that area for healing it activated the latent cell structure. Shall we try the other side?"

Sephiroth cut his eyes at Hojo.

"Don't you want to know if the other one is lurking there? Prefer to be surprised by it some day, do you?"

Sephiroth shut his eyes, certain that the scientist enjoyed this part. "Go ahead."

Hojo scanned through an assortment surgical tools, rejecting small scalpels and cutting instruments. He selected a large blade with a robust handle, double edged just for this type of thing. He removed the protective sheath and pulled his thumb perpendicular across the edge, testing its sharpness. Like every tool used on Sephiroth it had to have superior razor-type edges on it or it wouldn't even go through Sephriroth's skin.

"Are you relaxed?" Hojo asked, giving the naked, non-winged shoulder a poke. It was distinctly non-pliable. "Either you relax or you'll have to do it yourself."

Sephiroth considered that option, if for no other reason than to deprive the madman of his joy. But he had to admit that the scientist was more precise in his aim. When Sephiroth took a blade to himself he sometimes hit things he wished he hadn't simply because his angle was poor. He shut his eyes and made his body relax until Hojo's finger poking was satisfied. Then Hojo stabbed the blade forward with as much speed and force as he had. Sephiroth responded with no more than an annoyed tic at the side of his eye as Hojo rubbed his hand and looked at the imbedded knife. He had sunk it in a good four inches, and that wasn't too bad considering what he was stabbing. If Sephiroth hadn't consciously relaxed he might have only made half an inch before running into what felt like iron as the density of flesh defensively increased at the impact point. Hojo pulled at the blade but found it stuck fast.

"Relax, _please_."

Sephiroth did so and Hojo was able to yank the blade free. It came out with a sucking sound and a free flow of blood. Within a few seconds the wound began to clot and scab over.

"How long did it take last time?" Hojo asked

"Less than thirty seconds."

They waited. Nothing happened.

"Maybe a slice would be better. Relax."

Sephiroth did so and Hojo swung the knife, cutting a gash in Sephiroth's shoulder with remarkable accuracy. It was a bit longer than Zack's, maybe not quite as deep, but the location was dead on, a mirror to the wound that had been on the other side. They waited while it too began to heal but induced no wing.

"Maybe I should open up your shoulder and take a look."

Sephiroth stood up abruptly and grabbed his coat. "You're done." He strode out of the lab without bothering to clean up.

"You still have your monthly adjustment in two weeks!" Hojo hollered after him. "Don't you be thinking you can skip that!"

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Hojo set three of the blood vials in the 'to be processed' rack in the refrigerator where they would receive standard Soldier analysis from his techs. The fourth he set in his personal 'do not touch' rack to look at later. The ear sample he put in a tube with special epoxy which, when set, would stabilize the sample so it could be sliced extra thin by the microtome for the electron microscope. There were some tiny structures inside the cells he wanted to get a better look at. The wing sample he considered a moment longer. Unconsciously he ground his teeth, wondering why Sephiroth couldn't be more cooperative. Hojo was doing all of this for him, after all. Everything Sephiroth had, his physical power, his sharp mind, his position with the company, Hojo had given to him. _Made_ for him.

Hojo went to a station at a laminar flow clean bench and cut his barely adequate sample of wing into four pieces. He dumped each in a vial of processed mako to help preserve it. Normally that wasn't necessary, but the wing wasn't actually flesh in the same way as the rest of its owner. Sephiroth didn't carry the bulk of it tucked away in his body cavity somewhere. It was largely constructed by free life force in the air, much the same way the planet constructed monsters. Within a few hours, without the continued support from its host, the sample would dissipate into small, useless, dusty bits.

Hojo watched the fluid in the vials swirl as strands of two slightly different shades of green moved past each other on their own. He frowned upon seeing this, and dropped some of the swirling liquid onto a slide and put it under the microscope. The two greens were separated like oil and water, but moving, sliding past one another, mingling until they finally mixed, their discrete colored patches becoming smaller and smaller until they were indistinguishable. He looked up at the sample vials; they were finishing their mixing as well. With a dropper he put one drop from the wing sample vial onto a white filter paper, then next to it a drop of clean, processed mako. The two drops were definitely different color. The one form the vial with the wing sample in it was slightly brighter, slightly more bluish. He'd have never noticed if he hadn't put them side by side, his color discrimination just wasn't that good. That was the kind of thing Lucrecia had been good at. .

Hojo stared at the samples, wondering about this difference. He knew what it had to be from. The wing would be loaded with mako from Sephiroth, and now that he thought about it was probably the intended use of the extra mako Sephiroth kept accumulating in his body. Mako that had been part of a Soldier was altered somewhat, softened, less caustic, with better affinity to living cells. It's why the organic method worked. He had studied hundreds of samples of mako laden blood, semen, saliva, even snot, trying to make some use of the stuff but the new characteristics were just too fragile. Mako harvested from a Soldier immediately reverted back to the same signature of the pure, processed, reactor mako. It reverted back to its source.

Sephiroth's did as well; it reverted back to a 'non-organic' state. He had tested mako from Sephiroth, including the effluent from the wringing process, and the signature looked the same as all the rest- clean, processed mako. But there must be something they were missing in their mako characterization because clearly the mako coming off the wing sample wasn't the same. The color was different.

Hojo twittered the scalpel between two fingers, thinking as the side of the thin blade tapped rapidly against the bench top. He hadn't done a color analysis on Sephiroth's organic mako because they abandoned that method long ago, when they developed more precise methods to categorize the mako parameters. But they used to do a lot of colorimetry on natural mako, and unlike the processed reactor mako, natural sources were all different. Sephiroth had been brought up on natural mako from a source in the Nibelheim mountains. Hojo shut his eyes and let his mind cast back in time. Though his brain was often overfilled lately in the service of ShinRa, he never truly forgot a piece of data. Everything was in there if he just dug hard enough. Eventually he could see in his mind the absorption and reflectivity spectra of the mount Nibel mako. Sephiroth's original source had been a bit bluish. It might be true that Sephiroth's harvested organic mako reverted back to its source, but Sephiroth's source wasn't reactor mako. It was this bluish stuff from the mountain.

Hojo stood up so suddenly that his chair fell over behind him. This was the thing that was different about Sephiroth. Maybe if he wanted a good host for Jenova cells he needed to start with this mako. The original source was gone, dried up, but maybe...

Hojo went to his computer and called up Soldier test results, smiling excitedly at what he saw. Cloud Strife's last six mako level tests had generated some spurious, erratic readings, resulting in multiple test runs until getting a solid, correct value. He even showed the same, anomalous 920 that kept popping up when trying to read Sephiroth's mid three-hundred range. Sephiroth's mako level had always been a twitchy read, and now Cloud was showing the same behavior. Cloud Strife was full of Sephiroth's unique mako.


	22. The Hard Ending

**Disclaimer: **I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: This is a breakneck ending that's a bit of a downer because of where it goes. If you prefer a happy ending, skip to the next chapter. **

Cloud picked up the receiver before the second ring, despite the fact that he was all the way across the room, on the couch, covered in pillows and a laptop, and he didn't hurry. It was one of the odd aspects of having increased speed, daily things that took normal people say, three rings of the telephone, took him one without any extra effort on his part.

"This is Cloud," he said.

"This is professor Hojo. I need to speak to Sephiroth."

Cloud wrinkled his nose, partly because he had absorbed Sephiroth's distaste for the scientist and partly in annoyance, because he knew Hojo had the clearance to check the General's schedule and could have known Sephiroth was out on mission until maybe 3 am. Cloud looked at the caller ID just to be safe; it read 032, which was the lab alright.

"He's not here, won't be back tonight," Cloud said, "You need to try his PHS. But he's on stealth mission and probably won't answer."

"Well, that won't do. I have a refill on one of his medications; he's out and needs to take this tomorrow morning. I won't be in tomorrow and he won't let anyone else in the lab handle his formulations. You know how he is. I would send it up, but again, same problem."

Cloud sighed. Sephiroth had been on some new meds to help smooth out the whole wing transition thing and was pretty uptight, paranoid even, about his drugs. If having to take some drug from Hojo was bad, taking it improperly was worse.

"I imagine he would be alright with you coming down and picking it up?" Hojo suggested.

"Yeah, um, I'll be down in five minutes."

"Good. I'll be in my office; it's off to the right in the back."

Cloud hung up, wondering why this was bothering him. He was in the same building for Shiva's sake; he didn't even have to go outside. And if Sephiroth was out of something (although Cloud hadn't heard about it) he would want the refill so he could take the drug on schedule. Probably the idea of Hojo just bugged him. He went to the door to put on his boots.

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Sephiroth knew immediately that Cloud wasn't home when he opened his door. The smell wasn't right. There were a lot of smells associated with Cloud, Cloud sweaty, Cloud wet from the shower, day old Cloud. The one that was missing was fresh Cloud, current Cloud, Cloud was at home Cloud. He passed by the counter where they normally left notes for one another; there was none. Cloud's boots, wallet, and keycard were gone, but not his gear. Nor his jacket. But it was an unseasonably warm night as a bit of summer intruded into the fall before real winter came. Cloud had probably just gone out with some of the guys. The young Second Class didn't have duty until noon the next day so there was no reason for him not to be out late. Except that he normally left a note. Sephiroth frowned, but decided it had probably just gotten later than Cloud had expected. Soldiers were a raucous bunch and many of the bars downtown were open until 4am. Sephiroth showered, went to bed, fully expecting to hear Cloud at the door at any moment.

At 6:30 am Sephiroth woke, conspicuously alone in his bed, and this time he knew there was something wrong. Surely Cloud would have called. He speed dialed Cloud's PHS, and after six rings it went to voicemail. He speed dialed Zack.

"What?" Zack snapped, having no phone manners at that hour of the morning.

"Zack?"

The single syllable was so laced with tension that adrenaline spiked Zack all the way awake. "Seph? What's wrong?"

"Tell me you know where Cloud is."

"No, sorry, I don't. Last I saw him was at lunch yesterday."

"He wasn't here when I came in this morning at three and he's still not here. He's not answering his PHS. You don't have any ideas?"

"No, I don't." Only once had a Soldier actually disappeared since Zack had joined, but he knew it used to happen with some frequency. They had a procedure for it, but the few Lost Soldier Alerts he'd participated in resulted in a chagrined, accidentally AWOL, drunken Soldier who incurred ridicule and wrath for a month. "Is he supposed to be on duty?"

"No. Not until noon."

"Well... shit Seph, he might be boozed up somewhere, sleeping it off. It happens. Maybe even to Cloud."

Sephiroth nodded, finding it odd to hope that was the case. "If he doesn't show up for duty at noon I'm initiating the LSA. I want him found before that." Sephiroth paused. "Something doesn't feel right. I'll call the commanders and make them take roll call so we'll see if anyone else is unaccounted for and out of PHS contact."

"And I'll call the Soldiers who I know he hangs with. Somebody must have seen him."

Two hours later they were both in Sephiroth's office, comparing notes. Every Soldier in residence had been woken up and questioned. Every Soldier but Cloud was accounted for, and the last guys to see Cloud were early yesterday evening. They thought he was going home. Sephiroth was getting ready to punch the LSA code that sent every Soldier into high alert. They would stop everything they were doing and form teams to search in widening circles from the point of disappearance, harassing every barkeep, shop owner, private citizen until they came up with their man. They didn't search within ShinRa- that was part of the point. Instead they made themselves such a nuisance and PR nightmare that if anyone within ShinRa were holding him they'd be pressured to give him up. Even …

Sephiroth looked up from his desk to the impossible figure in his doorway. His mind finished the last thought: Turks.

Sephiroth stood up and came around to the front of his desk, Zack holding a ready position at his side. They had forgotten this possible avenue for trouble.

"Reno!" Sephiroth growled, and noticed that even though the Turk looked relaxed he had positioned himself for quick getaway.

"Don't be snarling at me," Reno said, casually examining one fingernail. "I'm not the source of your troubles this time. In fact I owe you, in a weird way to be sure, but I always repay my debts. Here," he held out a small slip of paper, "You want this."

With that Reno abruptly disappeared. Sephiroth looked down at the paper; it had a series of letters and numbers on it in two lines.

"What is it?" Zack said.

"It's a network address for one of the security cameras," Sephiroth said "and maybe the security code for the stored data."

He went over to his computer and typed in the information, and then in the box for code he typed in the password. It was a camera in one of the shipping docks. At the menu for the saved files he clicked on the one for the previous evening and let it run through on in high speed. At about 8 pm something caught his eye and he slowed it.

"Hey, that's Cloud!" Zack said. "Where is he going with Hojo? Why is going with Hojo?"

Sephiroth took in Cloud's slow, clod like movements. "He's drugged. It's called dominithol, it leaves the subject partly awake and susceptible to voice command. Hojo used to give it me before I developed a resistance to it."

They watched in rapt horror as Cloud stepped slowly up the ramp and disappeared into the ship. The hatch closed and they could see the number.

"Seventy-two," they said simultaneously, and raced out towards the dockyards.

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"I'll check for the ship," Zack said, and took a rapid run around the yard looking for number seventy-two. Sephiroth went right to the control booth.

"I want to see the logs for last night."

"Sir, I can't let you see that." A nervous, balding attendant stared at him, adjusting his glasses as though he hoped he were seeing things. Sephiroth hoisted the man one handed by the lapels of his work jacket.

"I want to see the logs for last night," he repeated, with no strain or change of any kind in his voice.

The worker's eyes widened like a terrified animal and his feet flailed in the air under him.

"OK!" he squeaked, no doubt remembering the hundreds of rumors that circulated about General Sephiroth, especially the ones about how he might be crazy.

Sephiroth put the man down and found the written ledger thrust into his hands. Computer data might have required a another special Turk code, but as long as shipping insisted on keeping duplicates on paper he would never need one.

The worker tried to make a run for it, to slip silently past the General while he was distracted, but as he passed both feet were kicked out from under him and he found himself laying him flat on the floor with one heavy soled boot parked on his back.

"Stay," the General said as he continued to flip through the ledger. Then he stopped and the boot was suddenly removed.

"Get up."

The man did so, all thoughts of escaping now vanquished.

"Why is there no name or description for departure of ship 72 at 8:00 PM last night?"

"I don't know, I wasn't on duty last night," the man said, but one look at Sephiroth let him know that answer was inadequate. "Sometimes that happens! Execs don't have to sign the log."

Sephiroth's face hardened. He was an exec and he always signed the log. Fucking Hojo. "I need," he worked to unclench his teeth, "to know where that ship went. How do I do that?"

The worker in front of him blinked rapidly, letting Sephiroth know he was getting dangerously close to freezing the man if he didn't back off.

"Th...the pilot, they always keep good logs."

"Ship's not back." Zack had returned at a dead run, barely breathing hard.

The worker's attention turned to the other Soldier who appeared in the office, looking quite as crazy as his General. It was the eyes, the man decided, those freaky Soldier eyes. Normal sane people didn't have eyes like that.

"You could call the pilot, Zimmer" he said, "Call him on his radio, or even PHS, here, I have the numbers here." The worker dug frantically in a file, desperate to find some piece of information to get these two away from him. No sooner had he pulled the contact information then it disappeared, literally vanished from his hands. He looked around, confused, and saw the General had the list and was already dialing. He stood with mouth open. He never even saw the man move.

Sephiroth got nothing on the radio call for Ship 72, and dialed the pilot's personal PHS. He answered on the second ring.

"Zimmer,"

"This is General Sephiroth, I need to know your destination after takeoff from Midgar central at approximately 8:00 PM last night."

"Sure thing General," the pilot said. One thing Sephiroth liked about pilots, they didn't give a damn about ShinRa regulations. If they liked you they talked, and they mostly liked Sephiroth and Soldiers in general. "We touched down in Corel for fuel then landed in Nibelheim."

"Nibelheim?" Sephiroth said. "Your passengers?"

"Hojo, looking like his usual scrawny Hojo self, and some young guy in sweats lab coat, and blond hair. Kind of muscular looking but sick or drunk or something, he never picked his head up. I thought he maybe was a tech or something."

"He was one of my Soldiers."

"Oh, shit General, if I had known I'd have called you."

"It's not your fault Zimmer. Tell me everything you can about them."

Zimmer said everything he knew, which wasn't much. They had one equipment case with them and one small overnight bag. Hojo carried both. They didn't get off the ship at Corel, and both disembarked at Nibelheim and walked towards to town. The young man never looked up or said anything.

Sephiroth thanked the man and returned his heated gaze back to the shipping office attendant. "I need a ship to Nibelheim. Now."

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Eight hours later Sephiroth and Zack stepped off an airship into the evening air outside of Nibelheim. They had nothing with them other than what they were wearing that morning. They needed nothing more, they had dressed for work and so were already outfitted with every essential item – fighting clothes, tools, gear, and weapons. Zack had initially been confused over why Hojo would be bringing Cloud home, but Sephiroth had explained that Hojo had taken recent interest in the reactor at Nibelheim, plus there may have been another ShinRa facility there in the form of a residential mansion in town that Sephiroth may or may not have been kept at as a young child. This did little to clear Zack's confusion but he decided just to go with it. He never understood anything thing Hojo did anyhow and it didn't seem Sephiroth understood either.

They made a quick run to the aforementioned mansion, where they found a new lock on the door that had replaced the one Sephiroth had destroyed months earlier. He busted the new one the same way.

"Fuck it's cold here," Zack said. Sephiroth agreed; the weather was certainly different here than Midgar. Winter was on its way in the mountain. Once inside the mansion Zack looked to Sephiroth for direction.

"Somebody's been here within the last day," Sephiroth said, "The dust has been disturbed. You take the east wing. Be careful."

Zack nodded. He hadn't needed to be told to be careful. Hojo may have been an old spindly fart but he was sneaky, and he had that nasty shit that knocked Soldiers out, plus the new drug he had just learned about that allowed him to control a Soldier. And the weird thing about Hojo, maybe because he had been inflicting pain on Soldiers as a daily routine for so long, the scientist never triggered anyone's precog against danger.

Sephiroth took the west wing and almost immediately found something new. In what should have been a bedroom or maybe a study one wall was completely slid away, revealing an inky black opening behind it, the sight and the smell of which sent gooseflesh up Sephiroth's back. The opening and the terrified feeling it brought were both familiar, just as the house was. He had been here too. He calmed his mind against this unasked for irrational fear and detected Cloud's sent among what smelled like chemicals and decay. The smell was faint. They were fourteen hours behind Hojo, so Cloud maybe wasn't here anymore, but he had been within the last day so Sephiroth followed the trail. A narrow twisted stair led into a basement area, and at its bottom he located a light switch using nothing more than the moonlight trickling down from the room above. He flicked it and lights blazed overhead, causing his pupils, almost round in the dark, to slam back down to their normal vertical slots. A side room caught his attention, and in it a large box, a coffin sized box. It too was familiar and pestered him from the edge of his memory. Facing his fears he stepped in and gently lifted the lid. It contained a corpse, or a rather a man as there was no decay and it smelled only of aged dust. He was dark haired and Sephiroth experienced immediate relief that it wasn't Cloud. Then the man opened his eyes, unseeing, unmoving, and as red as blood, but by the blank look in them Sephiroth decided the man was some kind of dead. He and shut the lid. As long as it stayed there and didn't bother him he wouldn't need to bother with it.

He moved further into the lab, past dusty lab benches, then to one that had been recently cleaned. On it was a notebook with Hojo's scrawl on the outside; Hojo must have planned on coming back because he never left a notebook behind.

Sephiroth picked it up and flipped through, reading quickly. A short intro on himself informed him that he had been given at a young age cells from some 'creature', the thing called Jenova, a name he had heard before. That was disturbing. That he wasn't responding as hoped to these cells left him relieved. That other subjects responded more poorly than he somehow made him happy, maybe just because it meant Hojo was thwarted in his efforts. The rest got worse. His unusual mako which originally came from a spring outside of Nibelheim somehow made him a superior receptacle for the creature's cells, but a newer fresher subject was needed with the same mako. A fresher subject had been found in the form of Cloud.

Alarm raced through his body as he scanned the rest, and down a table of time and injections and "subject response." Sephiroth dropped the notebook when he saw the last entry that logged the subject as "unresponsive". He scanned the room and immediately headed towards a door emitting a faint green light. There his breathing stopped, his mind paralyzed in a synaptic electrical storm. He had found Cloud, not in a healing tube but a rectangular tank filled with a diffuse mako solution. It wasn't bubbling, it wasn't sealed, and it wasn't hooked up to anything. Cloud was drowning.

With two giant steps he crossed the room and sunk both arms in to pull Cloud up by the shoulders. He knew as soon as he touched him. Cloud was cold, he wasn't breathing, his heart was still. Cloud, his beautiful Cloud, was dead. Cloud's head fell back, spilling solution out of his lifeless mouth, and the eyes, dimmed to a pale death blue, peeked unseeing through cracked open lids. Sephiroth crumpled over the dead form, pressing his face to the body as a keening wail unlike he'd ever heard from any creature escaped him and filled room. He squeezed as fluid dripped and his hair fell heedlessly into the tank. Then he forced himself to stand, mechanically, and let Cloud's body slip back into the liquid. His vision had taken on a greenish cast as his brain limped the limp of the fatally wounded. Cloud wasn't supposed to die this way. He had steeled himself against Cloud injured, even Cloud dying in an honest fight, but not like this. Cloud had died because of the special mako in his body, Sephiroth's mako. With every coupling, every act of love and precious connection, he had moved Cloud closer to this fate surely if he had been poisoning him. But Hojo had done this. Hojo had killed his last Soldier and finally he would pay.

With frightening speed Sephiroth was out of the building and on the street, trying to force his poorly responding mind to focus. His feet brought him to the main street, right in front of a large ugly building. Cloud's school. A new fire burst to life inside him, a burning rage for the place that had hurt Cloud. That fire flowed down his arm and expanded into sphere in his right hand where burned ever brighter, and when he could no longer contain the white heat he hurled it at the building. It exploded into a satisfying wreath of flame, so bright his head involuntarily turned away from it and his eyes fell upon the town hall across the street. The centerpiece of this town, this town that had Cloud for fourteen years and brought him nothing but pain. Sephiroth had only gotten two years, less than two even. He launched another fireball at the town hall and was exhilarated to see it similarly engulfed. Several angry townspeople emerged from whatever cracks they were skulking in and ran directly at him, meaning to stop him no doubt. They were yelling something he couldn't understand and didn't care to. He smiled. So now they come. To protect their damn building they come, but for a boy beaten in their streets they do nothing. Masamune sliced one, two, three times and laid them to waste. The fourth he stabbed just for the direct, personal pleasure of it. The rest of the rats cowered away from him, and he tried to remember what he was doing. Right, Hojo hunting. The reactor, Hojo had this Jenova creature at the reactor.

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Zack Fair had heard the sound, the horrible, wailing scream, and had known instinctively that it was Sephiroth. He wasn't sure how he knew, he had never heard the General make a noise anything like that before, but somehow he knew. He also had the distinct impression that it was down, basement level, and he ran back to center part of the mansion, located a door to a basement, but found no Sephiroth there. There was in that basement but junk, dusty storage boxes, and a few rats. He thought Sephiroth had not even been there, for he caught no scent of him. Either he was wrong about the 'down' part or the place had more than one basement.

"Sephiroth!" Zack bellowed. It shouldn't matter where in the house they each were, anyone should hear that. But there was no response. Zack ran back up the stairs, still yelling for his commander, and methodically started checking each room in turn. At one point he thought he heard steps, but they were gone when he came into the hallway. Finally he came to the room with the open wall section and spiral stair. He ran heedlessly down the towards light below, another basement, just as he had suspected. Seph had to be here. He trotted past a lab type notebook on the floor, giving it only the barest glance, and entered the far room. A moment passed while he stared at Cloud in the tank before he leapt forward and sunk one arm in to pull him out. Dead, dead as dead as dead and Sephiroth had been here.

Zack ran out the front door, knowing now he had missed Sephiroth, and was greeted to a town on fire. He ran to where two large buildings were burning and the town fire brigade was just getting organized. Several figures lay in pools of blood in the street, and a man ran up and grabbed his shoulders, rather rashly, Zack thought, given Zack's current state of agitation.

"He's mad! General Sephiroth's gone mad! We tried to stop him…" the man waved his hand at the fallen as if to show what was the result.

"You attacked him?" Zack asked, incredulous. Fucking idiots.

"Where is he?" Zack demanded, shaking the man a little to get his attention.

"He went towards the reactor! You have to stop him!"

"Where- how do I get there?" Zack yelled.

The man ceased his wild arm waving enough to point down one road. Zack took off running, wishing he had better directions but finding he didn't need them. It was a straight shot down road to the edge of town and once in the forest he followed where it was clear heavy machinery had traveled recently. The road led to a bridge, a new one. Sephiroth and Cloud had told him all about the lack of bridge and the whole rope cross thing, but somebody, ShinRa most likely, had been at work here in the last few months.

Zack ran across the bridge and to the reactor, finding the big steel door ripped open and half off its hinge. The sight gave him pause but he continued on. That was more door than he could have ripped free. Once inside Zack didn't have to hunt for Sephiroth; he could hear him bellowing in the gray darkness.

"HOJO!" The yell was followed by what sounded like metal-on-metal destruction. Sephiroth was wrecking the place. Cursing and more ruckus followed. Zack found the stair, followed it up and around, to an area hanging over the mako pool. He skidded, slowing, calming himself before approaching within even twenty feet of his enraged commander.

"I don't think he's here, Seph," Zack said quietly. Sephiroth stared at the floor, his left hand clenching and moving on the hilt of his sword. Zack was unsure if he'd heard him. "Look, I'm all for killing the bastard, but I don't think he'd be out here in the middle of the night. More likely in town."

Now Sephiroth looked up, a cold stare that gave Zack a chill as the strange eyes blinked but didn't blink. The long silvery eyelashes remained still but the inner eyelids were heavy at work, sweeping over and over across his eyes. Then Sephiroth dropped to his knees, a crumpling of the body that was no less graceful for its defeat. His head hung so Zack could no longer see his face, the silver hair forming an unbroken waterfall that pooled onto the dusty metal floor. Zack stepped forward, cautiously, and put a hand lightly to Sephiroth's shoulder.

"I'm done Zack. With all of this, with the fighting and the horror and my own abomination." He stood up abruptly, slipping out of Zack's reach. "Finish me."

Zack shook his head in denial and confusion. He understood what Sephiroth meant, just not how he could ask it of him.

"No," Zack said, with less force in his voice than he would have liked. "I won't do this." _Not again_ his voice pleaded inside his head.

Something hostile flashed in Sephiroth's eyes and he brought his weapon slightly forward. "You dispatched of Angeal easily enough."

Zack felt himself light green, partly from the unfair comment and partly as pure physical response to Sephiroth's state.

"Seph," Zack said, pleading now, "Don't do this to me."

A thin wicked smile spread across Sephiroth's face. His ragged breathing ceased and the confident fluidity that had always marked his person re-took possession of his body.

"Come now, Zack," he said, his tone now smooth and calculated. "You'll survive this too. You were ever the strong one. And you'll get play the hero; you like that. I just cut down four citizens and lit the town on fire. Come for me; it's the right thing to do and you know it. You've always known it."

Zack shook his head against the surprising effectiveness of these almost whispered suggestions. He put his weapon forward and took several steps back. He recognized this mode of Sephiroth's, the one he termed 'the sadist', the one Sephiroth wore for interrogations and torture. It was deadly difficult to jar him out of it before his target was finished. He'd only seen that happen once, and Cloud had done it. At the moment the General's target was own self, and he meant to use Zack to that end.

Zack took a cautious step sideways, thinking if he could only just stay away maybe this would burn out. He knew Sephiroth would not turn his weapon on himself because that never worked for Soldier. Their bodies were so tough they tended to resist all on their own, and your arms would stop the strike half way through your own neck or body or whatever it was you were trying to do, so that you couldn't finish the job before passing out and then healing up again. Like his contemporary, Angeal, Sephiroth hoped to engage Zack strongly enough to force Zack to throw lethal blows.

Sephiroth started the attack and Zack parried and moved, parried and moved. Then came a flurry so vigorous that it sent Zack up and over some of the piping, swinging and retreating until he was out of sight.

"Come, now, Zack." that odd, compelling voice floated across the space as Zack caught his breath, hiding behind a large vertical column. "You know defense isn't your strong suit."

Then the column was hacked in two in front of him and Zack was on the run again. Sephiroth was right; Zack was a better attacker and might stand a chance if he did so. But there was no way, no fucking way he was going to give into that.

Or so he thought.

Zack's Soldier instincts for self preservation proved the stronger, and when the opening presented itself he attacked. Soldier instincts prevailed over Sephiroth as well, and although this was the attack he was waiting for he defended despite himself. The timing conspired to have Zack back off in horror at his own actions at the moment Sephiroth threw a combo back kick followed by a diagonal strike. Zack flew and hit one of the cinderblock walls, cracking his head so strongly that even with Zack's hard skull consciousness abandoned him. Sephiroth stepped over to his opponent, moving slow, face cold. He looked at the blood trickling onto the floor under Zack's head and from a slice on his torso. Part of his mind logically logged the injuries as non-fatal to Soldier. Already the blood had stopped flowing, but the crack to the head would keep him out for awhile because head healing was slow, something to do with keeping the brain from swelling. Some other part of his mind wondered at his own detachment. Normally he was frantic when Zack was hurt. He knew he should be so now, even if Zack _had_ survived worse. But he couldn't care, about anything, in fact he felt as if he was floating above the whole scene, his body and this bleeding Soldier below both belonging to someone else.

A piece of Sephiroth's mind reminded him he had something he could do. Hojo had the Jenova sample here, the contributor to the cells Hojo needed for his research. He would find that thing and destroy it.

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Deep in the Nibelheim mansion, a cold, mako logged body sat straight up out from a tank filled with pale green liquid. The blonde warrior coughed fluid from his lungs and his skin steamed as metabolic chemical reactions jacked up his body temperature. Cloud felt suddenly hot, unbearably hot, and he was needed. He had to protect his mother. Mother was in danger. Blurry eyed and confused he raced up narrow stairs and through a large house before coming out into the street. The whole downtown seemed like it was on fire. Cloud tried to turn his feet south, towards home, but they got hijacked elsewhere. He ran through the town and out the side road at his top speed, which was considerable. Part of him understood he was heading for the reactor, because his mother was in the reactor, but this didn't even register to him as strange. He just ran. He ran over the new bridge and through the ruined door, and up a three flights of stairs.

Near the top he instinctively quieted, creeping along with every ounce of his stealth skill. He saw the aggressor first, moving around the tank, looking for a way to get at Mother. Cloud balked. The attacker was familiar, but the mist in his brain wouldn't let him know from where. He got the idea the man was a brother, but it didn't change the fact that he had to be stopped.

Another man lay prone nearby, and next to him that which Cloud needed. He crept over and slowly lifted the Buster Sword from the limp fingers. Zack Fair roused slightly, and seeing Cloud would have smiled if his brain had fully reconnected to his facial nerves. Cloud was alive, Sephiroth was going to be all right, and everything was going to be all right. But the joy passed when he saw Cloud's eyes and knew Cloud was not in there. He was some sort of zombie and heading over to Sephiroth with his Buster. Zack tried to call out, to warn Sephiroth, but he was drifting again, thinking if only he had a few more minutes to recover.

Sephiroth had pulled away the coverings from the vertical cylinder healing tube holding the Jenova creature. Now he just had to get it out of there, and then... he wasn't sure. Hack it to bits? Throw it in the reactor pool? He leaned in close, and peered at it, a female looking creature with tentacles and destroyed wings. It was alive, and he might have felt pity for it as one of Hojo's victims on another day. But tonight only destruction filled his heart.

Suddenly the glass of the tube cracked upward in wild patterns, and he looked down for the source. Something pointed had impacted the surface, something large and pointed, and emitting from his midsection. Something that had penetrated through his midsection. He recognized it finally, but the pleasure that Zack had regained consciousness and done his duty wasn't quite enough to stop his Soldier reflexes from whirling and sinking Masamune into his attacker. Green eyes widened in shock, then confusion as he was unable to understand the why and how of the young man on his blade. But his Cloud's eyes were hollow, devoid of thought and fixed on the thing behind him.

Quite suddenly Sephiroth could hear it too, the pleading and demanding inside his head, and with a start realized he could always hear this voice but it had become such a familiar part of his mental landscape that he had given it no notice. It had been the voice that soothed him as a child, but when he needed to harden himself to survive his life in the lab he had shut out it and all such softness. Not that it mattered now. The Jenova creature had Cloud in its grip and if there was anything left of Cloud to be saved he had to get rid of the thing. But he didn't have much time; unlike the relatively slim Masamune, the enormous Buster was a deadly blade to be stabbed with. He was already dizzy from the blood loss and he could feel his innards alternately sticking together and ripping free with his movement as his body attempted to heal the gaping wound.

Gently he tipped Cloud off of his blade, careful not to cut sideways. Cloud lay still and he turned back to the damaged tube, quickly calculating what he could do. With the last of his strength he swung sideways at the tube, Masamune shattering the glass and cutting the creature's head off. As far as he had experienced if a creature had an identifiable head the intelligence and control resided there. He staggered and picked up the head, dripping with mako solution and a fluid that might be blood. It would go into the mako pool, but he couldn't risk it getting hung up somewhere, or it having some motion or flight capability that would save it. He wrapped both arms tightly around the head and jumped, curling himself entirely around his prize. As he hit the mako pool and the raw mako started to dissolve his body bit by bit, he smiled, knowing he had done all that he could for Cloud.

High above him on the platform Zack Fair roused once more and seeing Cloud down and injured tried to crawl towards him. Cloud's eyes cleared, even so far as to regain their normal blue, and as understanding returned to his mind panic and horror took hold. Cloud howled, an agonized, guttural sound that echoed in the walls of the empty reactor. Then the blue eyes went blank in catatonic denial, far more empty and frightful than they had been even under Jenova's control.

Zack reached for Cloud, but the effort made his head swim again. He drifted off once more, never again in his life to see an intelligent light return to Cloud Strife's eyes.

**A/N: The Scenic Route: A longer and more enjoyable path to the same destination. We dovetail back into the canonical world, and this is the end, as it should be. Stop here if you have any sense. I've never had any sense.**

_I wouldn't have believed it, if anyone had said it to me back then, back... how many years? Years have long since stopped existing for me. If anyone had said that I would hurt you, not just once, not just by accident but by intent, in repeated mortal conflict, I would have dismissed them out of hand. I would have died rather than hurt you. I tried, succeeded in fact. What I didn't know was that in choosing to let go of life the power of free will, that choice itself, would be rescinded._

_Jenova is gone and I am free of that tyranny. The planet won, but not in the way you think. I'll never forgive it, and the flower girl tells me I'll never have peace until I do. But such is my fate; I am not destined for peace. I am as I always have been; a thing for war._

_The planet, you see, that glorified, selfish, and not so mindless entity that supports all life here, could have destroyed Jenova at any time while she swam in the Lifestream with my spirit in tow. It could have destroyed her just as easily as it put forth the healing rain to erase the last of the geostigma from Jenova's scattered bits. A final scrap of mercy at last. What the planet couldn't do was knock down the human population fast enough for its tastes. It couldn't launch Holy on its own, a thing that could wipe out the ultra polluting Midgar in an instant if provided an opposing force such as Meteor close enough to it. Jenova, having shattered me into fragments for her use, directed me to launch meteor and the planet allowed it. Not just allowed it, encouraged it, and delayed the launch of Holy until it could do the most damage. I suppose you thought it was I who held back Holy, so coincidental was my second death to that event. Maybe the planet even told you it was so. But I haven't that strength. No more than I, or Jenova, could have located Aerith on our own when she went to pray and call Holy forth. The murderous thing that I had become asked the planet for Aerith's location just as I might navigate to a mountain meadow, and the planet gave it, willingly, joyously. In one fell act I launched the thing that would be used to destroy the city of humans and delivered into the Lifestream the one who was needed to ensure Meteor would not strike the spirit of the planet. Even as the planet supported you, loved you its own way as its champion, it manipulated us both through its complicated schemes._

_And that wasn't the only evil the planet put me to. While Jenova slept or was merely inattentive it latched onto my fractured soul and spun me a body as lithe and powerful as I wore in life, or the one Jenova later wove for me. It left behind every piece of me that housed sentiment, attachments, and every kind human emotion. It took what was left- a predator freed from restraint, and gave it direction. Did you not wonder what happened to our men? Our beautiful, bright-eyed Soldiers? I suppose everyone assumed ShinRa had eliminated them. Not so. Laden with mako to the point of offending the planet they attracted its first attack, even as you languished in Hojo's lab._

_I destroyed the Wutai base first, knowing it would be attributed to some new weapon of a Wutai rebellion. Then I took down the smaller bases before they could even get messages away to identify me. By the time I hit Corel all of Soldier was in a state of high alert, but they welcomed __me with open arms. They died the same moment. I left none alive, Soldier, regular army, support people, no one. I'm so sorry my dear. I know you liked Corel and Colonel Kuhn. Junon was harder. Colonel Niven, then assigned to Gavin's old post, was suspicious and put up a hell of a fight. If I had just been me he would have succeeded, but wielding the force of the planet...let us suffice to say you were fortunate only Jenova was my backer when you faced me. I ran Niven through from behind, a dishonorable act that I'm sure he never would have sunk to, dead or alive. The light faded out of his eyes with a whispered 'I forgive you' on his lips. But I don't expect that forgiveness anywhere else, least of all from you who have suffered the most, and the longest._

_Gavin, promoted to General at Midgar, was last on my murderous spree. He laid in a trap for me that bound and held my new, unnatural body with the spirit fragment in it. He didn't know the planet could simply go get an additional fragment and beset a duplicate on him. But he slipped away, with ten Soldiers still alive. I know where he went, where he must have gone. We had spoken of it when I was alive. He must have gone into the unused research facility below the old Soldier base outside Midgar and turned on that mako field around the big center tank, the field that flows in and out like a regular part of the Lifestream. They would be safe in there, but in suspended animation and so completely hidden that there was a risk they might never be found. It is the only triumph of my long incarceration that I held that information back, although I probably succeeded only because the planet did not try very hard to extract it from me. Once Gavin and his men were covered in this way they looked as though they had returned to the Lifestream, their heavy mako signatures no longer burning bright for the planet to target. They dropped off its radar and the planet simply let them be._

_You and your team were slated to play your role opposing me, puppets every one of us. I'm not sure in the end that it even mattered to whom. And now we are puppets once more, now that not just a Jenova but a hoard of her kind are hurtling their way towards us, their greed for new energy sources driving them towards our Planet with its rich Lifestream. The Planet can feel them coming, but this will be a physical fight with machines and bombs and sweat and blood. The planet must be finding its defenses pretty thin in this regard. An army of Soldiers would be probably handy right now. Ironic, is it not?_

_There were only four of us fighters whose patterns were complete enough in the Lifestream to be resurrected. Aerith, of course, being the "freshest" dead Cetra. Angeal, a contaminated being like myself and so unable to pass completely through, he cradled Zack inside his own spirit because he couldn't bear to let him go. And then there's me, the war machine called forth in hopes that I can lead and organize some sort of defense. So here I stand, breathing the air just outside of Midgar, less polluted now. Maybe the planet was right to wipe out this city and 20 percent of the population. Like too many fleas on a dog._

_I look up to the sign above the door where I know you to live. Seventh Heaven. How appropriate for you. I know you'll not want to see me, but I have to see you. For a thousand reasons I have to see you. An in the end I will ask only one thing of you- if you will lend me your strength for this fight. We must fight, even I, bitter of the planet though I am, will fight to save it, because as I told Aerith once so long ago on an airship after a game of cards, there's nowhere else to go. I will weather your wrath, hear your answer, and then go dig Gavin up if he still lives. I know he'll not forgive me either._

_I push open the door, a small chime dinging overhead, and I see you. You're at the bar, a lonely beer in front of you. Your eyes, Shiva your beautiful bright blue eyes, take my measure and your right hand twitches, thinking no doubt of that big Tsurugi you've taken to carrying. Your hand, even before your mind, thinks of how you once more need to set it to me. But I won't fight. Let the planet resurrect me again if it still wants me. But you don't reach for your sword. I see it leaning against the bar beside you and yet you don't reach for it. Instead you walk over to me and your face which used to express a hundred emotions at once is now blank. I think it is always blank these last few years. I stand stupidly still as your arms come up. I wait for the blow, but it never comes, and I feel your arms around my neck._

_"Do you love me?" I hear your voice, a whisper into my ear so close I can feel your warm breath, actually feel it with nerves on real skin. I prickle from the sensation_

_"Yes," I whisper back, my voice an unused croak, "With my whole heart I love you, Cloud."_

_You pull away from me and smile now, and I realize my arms have found their own way around your waist. I have no idea what expression I might be wearing. Probably astonishment._

_"Then it's really you, then," you say._

_I must look confused to you._

_"Don't you remember? You told me once that's how I would know it wasn't you; that you'll have forgotten you love me."_

_"I remember everything," I say. I pull you tight and you let me._

_"I figured trying to kill me was a pretty good sign that you had forgotten. And besides, I was told you'd be coming. The real you. All of you."_

_I frown, and am about to ask by whom when I know the answer. I hadn't noticed at first that we weren't alone, because his presence had been near me so often since Jenova was dissipated, passing between Angeal, Aerith, and I, that I had become inured to it._

_"Zack you're a bastard. We agreed I would speak to him first."_

_"What can I say," Zack answers, "I can't control when and where I got set down. And I couldn't just say nothing to him."_

_"How long have you been here," I ask, wallowing now a bit at the sight, sound, and smell of Zack. I am feeling a little dizzy from it. We had been so close as to be combined in the Lifestream, but it was quite different than these physical sensations._

_"Month," he says._

_I purse my lips, disgusted at the Lifestream's absence of time. It simply has no meaning there and as far as I knew Zack and I had just come to this osmosis-type consensus immediately before I became corporal. He comes over to us and I reach up and sink my fingers into his coarse black hair. I had never done this to him before, but the feeling of it captivates me, and he seems to understand. As do you. He puts a hand to my shoulder, then touches my face lightly._

_"I explained to him everything," Zack says, "I think its better that I did. I was put down first on purpose."_

_"You think so, do you?"_

_"Of course, didn't you know? I'm your guardian angel. I always have been."_

_Both of you laugh, rather hysterically I think, and at the sound of your laughter I forget all annoyance with Zack. You are smiling now, an enthralling light in your face and eyes. My Cloud. My beautiful Cloud._

_"C'mon," you say, pulling my hand towards a narrow stairway, "I think we have some catching up to do."_

_I follow, holding in my hand a mixture of soft skin and heavy calluses, feeling your grace and strength and a constitution that embodies both forgiveness and forceful determination. No wonder the planet loves you. Who could not?_

**A/N: Thank-you, thank-you, all of your for reading this. Especially the reviewers, there were times that I remember thinking 'these guys should be writing this thing, not me!' **

**I apologize for and rather regret not killing Hojo (some other time) but I wanted to save Sephiroth's heart and soul, not spare him his monstrous fate, and to show the transcendence of his and Cloud's love. Also the danger of the obsessiveness of it- he did go a little nuts there at the end.**

**I started this thing with a lemon and was tempted to end on one, but somehow it felt right just to let them go, to have some privacy at last and to forge their new life with its new challenges on their own. I will miss them _ :sniff:_  
**


	23. The Happy Ending

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or anything in it.

**A/N: This is the Happy Ending. I decided to write and post this after I had declared the ending of the story. I know, annoying.**

**I know not everybody likes tragic endings, but I figured 'what can I do? I already wrote the ending!' Well hell. This is fan fiction, I get to do what I want. I can do anything. I can post two endings if I like.**

**If you already read the last chapter, skip forward to where Sephiroth starts making fire (something had to change there), then skip forward again to where Zack comes up on the fire scene, then one more jump to where Sephiroth decides to sacrifice himself for Cloud. I have bolded the first word in each jump paragraph to help**

Cloud picked up the receiver before the second ring, despite the fact that he was all the way across the room, on the couch, covered in pillows and a laptop, and he didn't hurry. It was one of the odd aspects of having increased speed, daily things that took normal people say, three rings of the telephone, took him one without any extra effort on his part.

"This is Cloud," he said.

"This is professor Hojo. I need to speak to Sephiroth."

Cloud wrinkled his nose, partly because he had absorbed Sephiroth's distaste for the scientist and partly in annoyance, because he knew Hojo had the clearance to check the General's schedule and could have known Sephiroth was out on mission until maybe 3 am. Cloud looked at the caller ID just to be safe; it read 032, which was the lab alright.

"He's not here, won't be back tonight," Cloud said, "You need to try his PHS. But he's on stealth mission and probably won't answer."

"Well, that won't do. I have a refill on one of his medications; he's out and needs to take this tomorrow morning. I won't be in tomorrow and he won't let anyone else in the lab handle his formulations. You know how he is. I would send it up, but again, same problem."

Cloud sighed. Sephiroth had been on some new meds to help smooth out the whole wing transition thing and was pretty uptight, paranoid even, about his drugs. If having to take some drug from Hojo was bad, taking it improperly was worse.

"I imagine he would be alright with you coming down and picking it up?" Hojo suggested.

"Yeah, um, I'll be down in five minutes."

"Good. I'll be in my office; it's off to the right in the back."

Cloud hung up, wondering why this was bothering him. He was in the same building for Shiva's sake; he didn't even have to go outside. And if Sephiroth was out of something (although Cloud hadn't heard about it) he would want the refill so he could take the drug on schedule. Probably the idea of Hojo just bugged him. He went to the door to put on his boots.

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Sephiroth knew immediately that Cloud wasn't home when he opened his door. The smell wasn't right. There were a lot of smells associated with Cloud, Cloud sweaty, Cloud wet from the shower, day old Cloud. The one that was missing was fresh Cloud, current Cloud, Cloud was at home Cloud. He passed by the counter where they normally left notes for one another; there was none. Cloud's boots, wallet, and keycard were gone, but not his gear. Nor his jacket. But it was an unseasonably warm night as a bit of summer intruded into the fall before real winter came. Cloud had probably just gone out with some of the guys. The young Second Class didn't have duty until noon the next day so there was no reason for him not to be out late. Except that he normally left a note. Sephiroth frowned, but decided it had probably just gotten later than Cloud had expected. Soldiers were a raucous bunch and many of the bars downtown were open until 4am. Sephiroth showered, went to bed, fully expecting to hear Cloud at the door at any moment.

At 6:30 am Sephiroth woke, conspicuously alone in his bed, and this time he knew there was something wrong. Surely Cloud would have called. He speed dialed Cloud's PHS, and after six rings it went to voicemail. He speed dialed Zack.

"What?" Zack snapped, having no phone manners at that hour of the morning.

"Zack?"

The single syllable was so laced with tension that adrenaline spiked Zack all the way awake. "Seph? What's wrong?"

"Tell me you know where Cloud is."

"No, sorry, I don't. Last I saw him was at lunch yesterday."

"He wasn't here when I came in this morning at three and he's still not here. He's not answering his PHS. You don't have any ideas?"

"No, I don't." Only once had a Soldier actually disappeared since Zack had joined, but he knew it used to happen with some frequency. They had a procedure for it, but the few Lost Soldier Alerts he'd participated in resulted in a chagrined, accidentally AWOL, drunken Soldier who incurred ridicule and wrath for a month. "Is he supposed to be on duty?"

"No. Not until noon."

"Well... shit Seph, he might be boozed up somewhere, sleeping it off. It happens. Maybe even to Cloud."

Sephiroth nodded, finding it odd to hope that was the case. "If he doesn't show up for duty at noon I'm initiating the LSA. I want him found before that." Sephiroth paused. "Something doesn't feel right. I'll call the commanders and make them take roll call so we'll see if anyone else is unaccounted for and out of PHS contact."

"And I'll call the Soldiers who I know he hangs with. Somebody must have seen him."

Two hours later they were both in Sephiroth's office, comparing notes. Every Soldier in residence had been woken up and questioned. Every Soldier but Cloud was accounted for, and the last guys to see Cloud were early yesterday evening. They thought he was going home. Sephiroth was getting ready to punch the LSA code that sent every Soldier into high alert. They would stop everything they were doing and form teams to search in widening circles from the point of disappearance, harassing every barkeep, shop owner, private citizen until they came up with their man. They didn't search within ShinRa- that was part of the point. Instead they made themselves such a nuisance and PR nightmare that if anyone within ShinRa were holding him they'd be pressured to give him up. Even …

Sephiroth looked up from his desk to the impossible figure in his doorway. His mind finished the last thought: Turks.

Sephiroth stood up and came around to the front of his desk, Zack holding a ready position at his side. They had forgotten this possible avenue for trouble.

"Reno!" Sephiroth growled, and noticed that even though the Turk looked relaxed he had positioned himself for quick getaway.

"Don't be snarling at me," Reno said, casually examining one fingernail. "I'm not the source of your troubles this time. In fact I owe you, in a weird way to be sure, but I always repay my debts. Here," he held out a small slip of paper, "You want this."

With that Reno abruptly disappeared. Sephiroth looked down at the paper; it had a series of letters and numbers on it in two lines.

"What is it?" Zack said.

"It's a network address for one of the security cameras," Sephiroth said "and maybe the security code for the stored data."

He went over to his computer and typed in the information, and then in the box for code he typed in the password. It was a camera in one of the shipping docks. At the menu for the saved files he clicked on the one for the previous evening and let it run through on in high speed. At about 8 pm something caught his eye and he slowed it.

"Hey, that's Cloud!" Zack said. "Where is he going with Hojo? Why is going with Hojo?"

Sephiroth took in Cloud's slow, clod like movements. "He's drugged. It's called dominithol, it leaves the subject partly awake and susceptible to voice command. Hojo used to give it me before I developed a resistance to it."

They watched in rapt horror as Cloud stepped slowly up the ramp and disappeared into the ship. The hatch closed and they could see the number.

"Seventy-two," they said simultaneously, and raced out towards the dockyards.

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"I'll check for the ship," Zack said, and took a rapid run around the yard looking for number seventy-two. Sephiroth went right to the control booth.

"I want to see the logs for last night."

"Sir, I can't let you see that." A nervous, balding attendant stared at him, adjusting his glasses as though he hoped he were seeing things. Sephiroth hoisted the man one handed by the lapels of his work jacket.

"I want to see the logs for last night," he repeated, with no strain or change of any kind in his voice.

The worker's eyes widened like a terrified animal and his feet flailed in the air under him.

"OK!" he squeaked, no doubt remembering the hundreds of rumors that circulated about General Sephiroth, especially the ones about how he might be crazy.

Sephiroth put the man down and found the written ledger thrust into his hands. Computer data might have required a another special Turk code, but as long as shipping insisted on keeping duplicates on paper he would never need one.

The worker tried to make a run for it, to slip silently past the General while he was distracted, but as he passed both feet were kicked out from under him and he found himself laying him flat on the floor with one heavy soled boot parked on his back.

"Stay," the General said as he continued to flip through the ledger. Then he stopped and the boot was suddenly removed.

"Get up."

The man did so, all thoughts of escaping now vanquished.

"Why is there no name or description for departure of ship 72 at 8:00 PM last night?"

"I don't know, I wasn't on duty last night," the man said, but one look at Sephiroth let him know that answer was inadequate. "Sometimes that happens! Execs don't have to sign the log."

Sephiroth's face hardened. He was an exec and he always signed the log. Fucking Hojo. "I need," he worked to unclench his teeth, "to know where that ship went. How do I do that?"

The worker in front of him blinked rapidly, letting Sephiroth know he was getting dangerously close to freezing the man if he didn't back off.

"Th...the pilot, they always keep good logs."

"Ship's not back." Zack had returned at a dead run, barely breathing hard.

The worker's attention turned to the other Soldier who appeared in the office, looking quite as crazy as his General. It was the eyes, the man decided, those freaky Soldier eyes. Normal sane people didn't have eyes like that.

"You could call the pilot, Zimmer" he said, "Call him on his radio, or even PHS, here, I have the numbers here." The worker dug frantically in a file, desperate to find some piece of information to get these two away from him. No sooner had he pulled the contact information then it disappeared, literally vanished from his hands. He looked around, confused, and saw the General had the list and was already dialing. He stood with mouth open. He never even saw the man move.

Sephiroth got nothing on the radio call for Ship 72, and dialed the pilot's personal PHS. He answered on the second ring.

"Zimmer,"

"This is General Sephiroth, I need to know your destination after takeoff from Midgar central at approximately 8:00 PM last night."

"Sure thing General," the pilot said. One thing Sephiroth liked about pilots, they didn't give a damn about ShinRa regulations. If they liked you they talked, and they mostly liked Sephiroth and Soldiers in general. "We touched down in Corel for fuel then landed in Nibelheim."

"Nibelheim?" Sephiroth said. "Your passengers?"

"Hojo, looking like his usual scrawny Hojo self, and some young guy in sweats, lab coat, and blond hair. Kind of muscular looking but sick or drunk or something, he never picked his head up. I thought he maybe was a tech or something."

"He was one of my Soldiers."

"Oh, shit General, if I had known I'd have called you."

"It's not your fault Zimmer. Tell me everything you can about them."

Zimmer said everything he knew, which wasn't much. They had one equipment case with them and one small overnight bag. Hojo carried both. They didn't get off the ship at Corel, and both disembarked at Nibelheim and walked towards to town. The young man never looked up or said anything.

Sephiroth thanked the man and returned his heated gaze back to the shipping office attendant. "I need a ship to Nibelheim. Now."

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Eight hours later Sephiroth and Zack stepped off an airship into the evening air outside of Nibelheim. They had nothing with them other than what they were wearing that morning. They needed nothing more, they had dressed for work and so were already outfitted with every essential item – fighting clothes, tools, gear, and weapons. Zack had initially been confused over why Hojo would be bringing Cloud home, but Sephiroth had explained that Hojo had taken recent interest in the reactor at Nibelheim, plus there may have been another ShinRa facility there in the form of a residential mansion in town that Sephiroth may or may not have been kept at as a young child. This did little to clear Zack's confusion but he decided just to go with it. He never understood anything thing Hojo did anyhow and it didn't seem Sephiroth understood either.

They made a quick run to the aforementioned mansion, where they found a new lock on the door that had replaced the one Sephiroth had destroyed months earlier. He busted the new one the same way.

"Fuck it's cold here," Zack said. Sephiroth agreed; the weather was certainly different here than Midgar. Winter was on its way in the mountain. Once inside the mansion Zack looked to Sephiroth for direction.

"Somebody's been here within the last day," Sephiroth said, "The dust has been disturbed. You take the east wing. Be careful."

Zack nodded. He hadn't needed to be told to be careful. Hojo may have been an old spindly fart but he was sneaky, and he had that nasty shit that knocked Soldiers out, plus the new drug he had just learned about that allowed him to control a Soldier. And the weird thing about Hojo, maybe because he had been inflicting pain on Soldiers as a daily routine for so long, the scientist never triggered anyone's precog against danger.

Sephiroth took the west wing and almost immediately found something new. In what should have been a bedroom or maybe a study one wall was completely slid away, revealing an inky black opening behind it, the sight and the smell of which sent gooseflesh up Sephiroth's back. The opening and the terrified feeling it brought were both familiar, just as the house was. He had been here too. He calmed his mind against this unasked for irrational fear and detected Cloud's sent among what smelled like chemicals and decay. The smell was faint. They were fourteen hours behind Hojo, so Cloud maybe wasn't here anymore, but he had been within the last day so Sephiroth followed the trail. A narrow twisted stair led into a basement area, and at its bottom he located a light switch using nothing more than the moonlight trickling down from the room above. He flicked it and lights blazed overhead, causing his pupils, almost round in the dark, to slam back down to their normal vertical slots. A side room caught his attention, and in it a large box, a coffin sized box. It too was familiar and pestered him from the edge of his memory. Facing his fears he stepped in and gently lifted the lid. It contained a corpse, or a rather a man as there was no decay and it smelled only of aged dust. He was dark haired and Sephiroth experienced immediate relief that it wasn't Cloud. Then the man opened his eyes, unseeing, unmoving, and as red as blood, but by the blank look in them Sephiroth decided the man was some kind of dead. He and shut the lid. As long as it stayed there and didn't bother him he wouldn't need to bother with it.

He moved further into the lab, past dusty lab benches, then to one that had been recently cleaned. On it was a notebook with Hojo's scrawl on the outside; Hojo must have planned on coming back because he never left a notebook behind.

Sephiroth picked it up and flipped through, reading quickly. A short intro on himself informed him that he had been given at a young age cells from some 'creature', the thing called Jenova, a name he had heard before. That was disturbing. That he wasn't responding as hoped to these cells left him relieved. That other subjects responded more poorly than he somehow made him happy, maybe just because it meant Hojo was thwarted in his efforts. The rest got worse. His unusual mako which originally came from a spring outside of Nibelheim somehow made him a superior receptacle for the creature's cells, but a newer fresher subject was needed with the same mako. A fresher subject had been found in the form of Cloud.

Alarm raced through his body as he scanned the rest, and down a table of time and injections and "subject response." Sephiroth dropped the notebook when he saw the last entry that logged the subject as "unresponsive". He scanned the room and immediately headed towards a door emitting a faint green light. There his breathing stopped, his mind paralyzed in a synaptic electrical storm. He had found Cloud, not in a healing tube but a rectangular tank filled with a diffuse mako solution. It wasn't bubbling, it wasn't sealed, and it wasn't hooked up to anything. Cloud was drowning.

With two giant steps he crossed the room and sunk both arms in to pull Cloud up by the shoulders. He knew as soon as he touched him. Cloud was cold, he wasn't breathing, his heart was still. Cloud, his beautiful Cloud, was dead. Cloud's head fell back, spilling solution out of his lifeless mouth, and the eyes, dimmed to a pale death blue, peeked unseeing through cracked open lids. Sephiroth crumpled over the dead form, pressing his face to the body as a keening wail unlike he'd ever heard from any creature escaped him and filled room. He squeezed as fluid dripped and his hair fell heedlessly into the tank. Then he forced himself to stand, mechanically, and let Cloud's body slip back into the liquid. His vision had taken on a greenish cast as his brain limped the limp of the fatally wounded. Cloud wasn't supposed to die this way. He had steeled himself against Cloud injured, even Cloud dying in an honest fight, but not like this. Cloud had died because of the special mako in his body, Sephiroth's mako. With every coupling, every act of love and precious connection, he had moved Cloud closer to this fate surely if he had been poisoning him. But Hojo had done this. Hojo had killed his last Soldier and finally he would pay.

With frightening speed Sephiroth was out of the building and on the street, trying to force his poorly responding mind to focus. His feet brought him to the main street, right in front of a large ugly building. Cloud's school. A new fire burst to life inside him, a burning rage for the place that had hurt Cloud. That fire flowed down his arm and expanded into sphere in his right hand where burned ever brighter, and when he could no longer contain the white heat he hurled it at the building. It exploded into a satisfying wreath of flame, so bright his head involuntarily turned away from it and his eyes fell upon the town hall across the street. The centerpiece of this town, this town that had Cloud for fourteen years and brought him nothing but pain. Sephiroth had only gotten two years, less than two even. He launched another fireball at the town hall and was exhilarated to see it similarly engulfed. Several angry townspeople emerged from whatever cracks they were skulking in and ran directly at him, meaning to stop him no doubt. They were yelling something he couldn't understand and didn't care to.

**He** smiled. So now they come. To protect their damn building they come, but for a boy beaten in their streets they do nothing. He swatted three of them aside like the mere nuisances they were. The fourth he held aloft momentarily by the throat just so he could see the panic there, before releasing him to scamper away, coughing and sputtering. The rest of the rats cowered away from him, and he tried to remember what he was doing. Right, Hojo hunting. The reactor, Hojo had this Jenova creature at the reactor.

Ccccc

Zack Fair had heard the sound, the horrible, wailing scream, and had known instinctively that it was Sephiroth. He wasn't sure how he knew, he had never heard the General make a noise anything like that before, but somehow he knew. He also had the distinct impression that it was down, basement level, and he ran back to center part of the mansion, located a door to a basement, but found no Sephiroth there. There was nothing in this basement but junk, dusty storage boxes, and a few rats. He thought Sephiroth had not even been there, for he caught no scent of him. Either he was wrong about the 'down' part or the place had more than one basement.

"Sephiroth!" Zack bellowed. It shouldn't matter where in the house they each were, anyone should hear that. But there was no response. Zack ran back up the stairs, still yelling for his commander, and methodically started checking each room in turn. At one point he thought he heard steps, but they were gone when he came into the hallway. Finally he came to the room with the open wall section and spiral stair. He ran heedlessly down the towards light below, another basement, just as he had suspected. Seph had to be here. He trotted past a lab type notebook on the floor, giving it only the barest glance, and entered the far room. A moment passed while he stared at Cloud in the tank before he leapt forward and sunk one arm in to pull him out. Dead, dead as dead as dead and Sephiroth had been here.

**Zack** ran out the front door, knowing now he had missed Sephiroth, and was greeted to a town on fire. He ran to where two large buildings were burning and the town fire brigade was just getting organized. Several figures sat on the curb, holding heads or bloody noses, and a man ran up and grabbed his shoulders, rather rashly, Zack thought, given Zack's current state of agitation.

"He's mad! General Sephiroth's gone mad! We tried to stop him…" the man waved his hand at those sitting curbside as if to show what was the result.

"You attacked him?" Zack asked, incredulous. Fucking idiots. Zack looked at the two buildings, nearly engulfed and endangering their neighbors.

"Anybody in there?" he yelled, shaking the man a little to get his attention. The man shook his head negative. Zack accessed a mastered materia and sent several ice spells right where he knew they would to the most good and was suddenly grateful for all the fire extinguishing practice Sephiroth had pressed him into on New Years patrol. He then went over to the three injured men and put a light cure over all of them, even though he had half a mind to let them be.

"Where is the General?" Zack demanded of his original guide who had taken to following him around through this.

"He went towards the reactor! You have to stop him! He's a maniac!"

"Where- how do I get there?" Zack yelled.

The man ceased his wild arm waving enough to point down one road. Zack took off running, wishing he had better directions but finding he didn't need them. It was a straight shot down road to the edge of town and once in the forest he followed where it was clear heavy machinery had traveled recently. The road led to a bridge, a new one. Sephiroth and Cloud had told him all about the lack of bridge and the whole rope cross thing, but somebody, ShinRa most likely, had been at work here in the last few months.

Zack ran across the bridge and to the reactor, finding the big steel door ripped open and half off its hinge. The sight gave him pause but he continued on. That was more door than he could have ripped free. Once inside Zack didn't have to hunt for Sephiroth; he could hear him bellowing in the gray darkness.

"HOJO!" The yell was followed by what sounded like metal-on-metal destruction. Sephiroth was wrecking the place. Cursing and more ruckus followed. Zack found the stair, followed it up and around, to an area hanging over the mako pool. He skidded, slowing, calming himself before approaching within even twenty feet of his enraged commander.

"I don't think he's here, Seph," Zack said quietly. Sephiroth stared at the floor, his left hand clenching and moving on the hilt of his sword. Zack was unsure if he'd heard him. "Look, I'm all for killing the bastard, but I don't think he'd be out here in the middle of the night. More likely in town."

Now Sephiroth looked up, a cold stare that gave Zack a chill as the strange eyes blinked but didn't blink. The long silvery eyelashes remained still but the inner eyelids were heavy at work, sweeping over and over across his eyes. Then Sephiroth dropped to his knees, a crumpling of the body that was no less graceful for its defeat. His head hung so Zack could no longer see his face, the silver hair forming an unbroken waterfall that pooled onto the dusty metal floor. Zack stepped forward, cautiously, and put a hand lightly to Sephiroth's shoulder.

"I'm done Zack. With all of this, with the fighting and the horror and my own abomination." He stood up abruptly, slipping out of Zack's reach. "Finish me."

Zack shook his head in denial and confusion. He understood what Sephiroth meant, just not how he could ask it of him.

"No," Zack said, with less force in his voice than he would have liked. "I won't do this." Not again his voice pleaded inside his head.

Something hostile flashed in Sephiroth's eyes and he brought his weapon slightly forward. "You dispatched of Angeal easily enough."

Zack felt himself light green, partly from the unfair comment and partly as pure physical response to Sephiroth's state.

"Seph," Zack said, pleading now, "Don't do this to me."

A thin wicked smile spread across Sephiroth's face. His ragged breathing ceased and the confident fluidity that had always marked his person re-took possession of his body.

"Come now, Zack," he said, his tone now smooth and calculated. "You'll survive this too. You were ever the strong one. And you'll get play the hero; you like that. I just thrashed several citizens and lit the town on fire. Come for me; it's the right thing to do and you know it. You've always known it."

Zack shook his head against the surprising effectiveness of these almost whispered suggestions. He put his weapon forward and took several steps back. He recognized this mode of Sephiroth's, the one he termed 'the sadist', the one Sephiroth wore for interrogations and torture. It was deadly difficult to jar him out of it before his target was finished. He'd only seen that happen once, and Cloud had done it. At the moment the General's target was own self, and he meant to use Zack to that end.

Zack took a cautious step sideways, thinking if he could only just stay away maybe this would burn out. He knew Sephiroth would not turn his weapon on himself because that never worked for Soldier. Their bodies were so tough they tended to resist all on their own, and your arms would stop the strike half way through your own neck or body or whatever it was you were trying to do, so that you couldn't finish the job before passing out and then healing up again. Like his contemporary, Angeal, Sephiroth hoped to engage Zack strongly enough to force Zack to throw lethal blows.

Sephiroth started the attack and Zack parried and moved, parried and moved. Then came a flurry so vigorous that it sent Zack up and over some of the piping, swinging and retreating until he was out of sight.

"Come on, Zack." that odd, compelling voice floated across the space as Zack caught his breath, hiding behind a large vertical column. "You know defense isn't your strong suit."

Then the column was hacked in two in front of him and Zack was on the run again. Sephiroth was right; Zack was a better attacker and might stand a chance if he did so. But there was no way, no fucking way he was going to give into that.

Or so he thought.

Zack's Soldier instincts for self preservation proved the stronger, and when the opening presented itself he attacked. Soldier instincts prevailed over Sephiroth as well, and although this was the attack he was waiting for he defended despite himself. The timing conspired to have Zack back off in horror at his own actions at the moment Sephiroth threw a combo back kick followed by a diagonal strike. Zack flew and hit one of the cinderblock walls, cracking his head so strongly that even with Zack's hard skull consciousness abandoned him. Sephiroth stepped over to his opponent, moving slow, face cold. He looked at the blood trickling onto the floor under Zack's head and from a slice on his torso. Part of his mind logically logged the injuries as non-fatal to Soldier. Already the blood had stopped flowing, but the crack to the head would keep him out for awhile because head healing was slow, something to do with keeping the brain from swelling. Some other part of his mind wondered at his own detachment. Normally he was frantic when Zack was hurt. He knew he should be so now, even if Zack had survived worse. But he couldn't care, about anything, in fact he felt as if he was floating above the whole scene, his body and this bleeding Soldier below both belonging to someone else.

A piece of Sephiroth's mind reminded him he had something he could do. Hojo had the Jenova sample here, the contributor to the cells Hojo needed for his research. He would find that thing and destroy it.

cccccccccc

Deep in the Nibelheim mansion, a cold, mako logged body sat straight up out from a tank filled with pale green liquid. The blond warrior coughed fluid from his lungs and his skin steamed as metabolic chemical reactions jacked up his body temperature. Cloud felt suddenly hot, unbearably hot, and he was needed. He had to protect his mother. Mother was in danger. Blurry eyed and confused he raced up narrow stairs and through a large house before coming out into the street. The downtown smelled like it had been on fire, and there was a strange amount of people in the streets for Nibelhiem at this hour. Cloud tried to turn his feet south, towards home, but they got hijacked elsewhere. He ran through the town and out the side road at his top speed, which was considerable. Part of him understood he was heading for the reactor, because his mother was in the reactor, but this didn't even register to him as strange. He just ran. He ran over the new bridge and through the ruined door, and up a three flights of stairs.

Near the top he instinctively quieted, creeping along with every ounce of his stealth skill. He saw the aggressor first, moving around the tank, looking for a way to get at Mother. Cloud balked. The attacker was familiar, but the mist in his brain wouldn't let him know from where. He got the idea the man was a brother, but it didn't change the fact that he had to be stopped.

Another man lay prone nearby, and next to him that which Cloud needed. He crept over and slowly lifted the Buster Sword from the limp fingers. Zack Fair roused slightly, and seeing Cloud would have smiled if his brain had fully reconnected to his facial nerves. Cloud was alive, Sephiroth was going to be all right, and everything was going to be all right. But the joy passed when he saw Cloud's eyes and knew Cloud was not in there. He was some sort of zombie and heading over to Sephiroth with his Buster. Zack tried to call out, to warn Sephiroth, but he was drifting again, thinking if only he had a few more minutes to recover.

Sephiroth had pulled away the coverings from the vertical cylinder healing tube holding the Jenova creature. Now he just had to get it out of there, and then... he wasn't sure. Hack it to bits? Throw it in the reactor pool? He leaned in close, and peered at it, a female looking creature with tentacles and destroyed wings. It was alive, and he might have felt pity for it as one of Hojo's victims on another day. But tonight only destruction filled his heart.

Suddenly the glass of the tube cracked upward in wild patterns, and he looked down for the source. Something pointed had impacted the surface, something large and pointed, and emitting from his midsection. Something that had penetrated through his body to strike the glass. He recognized it finally, but the pleasure that Zack had regained consciousness and done his duty wasn't quite enough to stop his Soldier reflexes from whirling and sinking Masamune into his attacker. Green eyes widened in shock, then confusion as he was unable to understand the why and how of the young man on his blade. But his Cloud's eyes were hollow, devoid of thought and fixed on the thing behind him.

Quite suddenly Sephiroth could hear it too, the pleading and demanding inside his head, and with a start realized he could always hear this voice but it had become such a familiar part of his mental landscape that he had given it no notice. It had been the voice that soothed him as a child, but when he needed to harden himself to survive his life in the lab he had shut out it and all such softness. Not that it mattered now. The Jenova creature had Cloud in its grip and if there was anything left of Cloud to be saved he had to get rid of the thing. But he didn't have much time; unlike the relatively slim Masamune, the enormous Buster was a deadly blade to be stabbed with. He was already dizzy from the blood loss and he could feel his innards alternately sticking together and ripping free with his movement as his body attempted to heal the gaping wound.

**Gently** he tipped Cloud off of his blade, careful not to cut sideways. Cloud lay still and he turned back to the damaged tube, quickly calculating what he could do. With the last of his strength he swung sideways at the tube, Masamune shattering the glass and cutting the creature's head off. As far as he had experienced if a creature had an identifiable head the intelligence and control resided there. He staggered and picked up the head, dripping with mako solution and a fluid that might be blood. He staggered over to the edge of the platform, ready to throw it in, and thought just to be safe he should accompany it down and not risk it getting hung up somewhere, or it having some motion or flight capability that would save it. He turned back and looked at Cloud, acknowledged that his desire to stay with him was probably selfish, that there was almost no chance that Cloud was left alive in that shell, that his last motions had been that of the animated dead called forth somehow by the Jenova creature. He had seen such a thing once before, in Hojo's lab. He turned back to the pool and let the head fall. He would take the risk; he had made Cloud a promise, after all. He could always find some other way to kill himself if it came to that, death by Turk maybe.

Sephiroth took a step towards Cloud and felt his knees hit the metal floor below him as his vision collapsed. Too much blood, he had lost too much blood. He thought he heard the splash of something hitting the mako pool and smiled as the rest of him hit the floor.

With that splash Cloud opened his eyes, now clearing into their normal blue, and memory started creeping back. He was cold, wet, and still wearing the T-shirt and sweats he had left the apartment in. There was a sharp pain in his chest and some popping-gurgling sounds in his right lung, indicating he had a wound there. He remembered blurry haze of movement, then bright lights and unbearable pain, then nothingness. Then not so much his mind as his body remembered more, his legs told him he had run, he had climbed stairs. His fingers told him he had clutched the handle of Zack's Buster, he had lifted it...

"No," Cloud croaked, moving his head to see the limp form of silver and black lying face down near him. He crawled over and touched Sephiroth's bare neck; it felt hot to his too cold fingertips. His eyes cast down to what he knew he would see; a slice through the battle coat almost a foot long, sticky with blood. He was grateful he had held the blade vertical, if he had held it horizontal he'd have sliced Sephiroth in half. Still the cut went up through several ribs and through other vitals. He hoped Sephiroth's intestines and other organs had realigned themselves before knitting back together. Cloud reached up to his right ear; he still had his earrings.

"Cure3" he whispered, trying not to let the worry as to whether he had the energy for the spell taint his concentration. He felt the cure go out of him and knew he was at his limit, but before he passed out a fresh surge heated and invigorated him enough to stay conscious. But he had no time to puzzle over this new phenomenon, Sephiroth had rolled, and with the panic of a newborn kitten who finds its feet not on the ground he struggled to right himself to a more defensive posture.

"Shhh, it's OK," Cloud said, managing to get on his hands and knees above Sephiroth.

"Cloud..." Sephiroth whispered. "I thought you were dead."

Cloud frowned. He didn't feel very dead.

"Zack," Sephiroth croaked.

"I'm here," Zack came over, staggering a little but quickly regaining his feet. He picked up his Buster sword and looked at the coating of blood covering the last two feet. "Shit, Seph, I swear you're held together with mako and will power."

Sephiroth sat up. The healing was going nicely, and as usual it confused him a little. He knew he had lost too much blood to be sitting up, and he hadn't taken anything into his body to make up for that loss, but somehow more blood was made for him. He knew Hojo thought it came out of the air, that he sucked lifeforce out of the air to make new blood and body cells, but that always sounded absurd to him. He put a hand to Cloud's chest.

Cloud winced, Masamune was a narrow blade but it still meant an inch and half wide hole in his body. Sephiroth checked the materia slot in his armguard.

"Oh no you don't," Zack said, "I'm the liveliest; I'll do it."

He knelt down to heal Cloud's wound, and noticed Sephiroth staring at the side of his face. Zack returned the stare; his face hard.

"Zack, I'm sorry."

Zack sighed. He never was any good holding a grudge. And he supposed he could forgive Sephiroth one nutso episode, after all he had forgiven Angeal for knocking him clean through the plate. Actually that had worked out pretty well for him. But he couldn't let this develop into a pattern.

"I'll forgive you, but only if you to promise me you won't do that again."

"I promise to make sure Cloud is dead next time before I go on a destructive rampage."

"Ugh! How about you promise not to go on a rampage even if I am dead?" Cloud interjected.

Sephiroth looked around sullenly. Cloud poked him.

"I promise, but that doesn't include executing correctly directed revenge."

"Agreed," Zack and Cloud said together.

"Speaking of revenge," Zack said, "Isn't there something we should be doing?"

The three of them managed to stand and walk out of the reactor, Zack occasionally having to right one of his stumbling companions. Sephiroth had wanted to give his coat to Cloud, who was looking a little cold, but Cloud refused it on the basis that with its sewn in armaments it was too damn heavy and he'd rather shiver. Zack's head was feeling pretty good and the slice across his chest had sealed up enough for action, although Sephiroth made him promise that once they were safe he'd take a cure on it to keep it from scarring. Sephiroth was vain about his men that way.

"Are you sure you want to kill Hojo?" Cloud asked as they walked.

"I've always wanted to kill him. My question lately is whether I should. I've been wondering if I really need him as I once thought I did." He smiled at Cloud and squeezed the arm that was around him tighter.

"I think I'll just play this by ear."

When they reached the downtown area it was still full of people. The fires were out, but half the town seemed to be out and excitedly yammering at one another. They quieted and backed away when the bloody trio came into view.

Cloud laughed a little. "This is more excitement than they've had in a hundred years."

Zack spotted the man who had talked to him earlier, the one he began to think of as his guide, and motioned him over.

"There's another ShinRa employee in town, an older man with dark hair and glasses," Zack said. "Do you know where he is?"

"Sure," the man nodded enthusiastically even as he gave Sephiroth a suspicious glance. "Nobody comes in or out of Nibelheim without everybody knowing. He's staying at the Inn. He came out to look at the fire, but then went back in. Not a very gregarious fellow."

"Do me a favor? His name is professor Hojo, fetch him for us? Tell him the General needs to talk to him."

"Sure," the man said. Zack guessed he was the type who liked to be in the thick of things and was happy to be given a job, even he didn't know why he was doing it. But before he left he turned and looked at Sephiroth once more.

"He's not going to, um..."

"No. Everything's fine now. Just get the professor for us."

They stood between the two burned buildings, the acrid smell of burned wood strong in their nostrils and the residual smoke that hung in the air burning eyes slightly. Cloud looked at the destruction.

"Did you do this?" he asked Sephiroth.

"Yes. Sorry."

Cloud looked again appreciatively at the rubble that had been his school. "Sweet."

The crowd at the far end of the street parted then knotted up again, the whole curious group coming forward behind a dark figure.

"Ah." Hojo stepped forward upon seeing Sephiroth. "This looked like your work. Quite a fit you had here." Then his eyes fell on Cloud and his face opened with child-like excitement.

"Well, well, young man! You're up! Not such a failure after all! How delightful!"

Sephiroth gave no warning for his next move. He was weak, sluggish, dizzy, but his sword still swung with blinding speed. Most of the townspeople heard the 'whoosh' of the blade but were unsure of where it had traveled, at least until Hojo's head toppled slowly off his shoulders. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, and then a louder exclamation as the headless body hit the ground with all the ceremony of a sack of potatoes. Sephiroth stepped forward and looked down at the back of the severed head. His blade had also cut through the ponytail that Hojo normally wore at the nape of the neck, leaving the hair shorter and loose. He bent down and grabbed a handful of the hair, and deliberately not looking at its face he hurled it with a grunt clear of the town where it crashed into the wooded mountainous area beyond.

"Wow," said Zack's guide, who had returned to his side. "He must be really pissed." Zack nodded absently.

"We need a place to stay," Sephiroth said to Cloud, "And I want to keep an eye on your mother to make sure there's not some sort of mob retribution directed at her. We're going to your house."

Cloud hooked Sephiroth's arm before he could walk away. "We should clean this up," he said, motioning to Hojo's body.

Sephiroth looked down in disgust. He really didn't want to deal with that right now.

"I'll take care of it," A man in his mid-sixties came forward from the crowd. He had a proud posture and serious face, his body showing rugged strength despite his years.

"I remember this bastard," he continued. "My daughter was friends with his wife when he lived here."

Sephiroth's face showed clear surprise, the confirmation that Hojo had been working in Nibelheim paling next to the shock of discovering the madman actually had a wife. He wondered what kind of drug was involved with that one.

"When his wife disappeared my Greta was adamant that something had happened to her. She went up to that damn mansion to confront Hojo and I never saw her again. ShinRa Turks came and investigated, they said she'd run off. But I know that wasn't the truth."

The man spit on the corpse. Sephiroth looked around and saw several other crowd members, all older like the grieving father, eyeing the corpse with the same malevolent look. It seemed Hojo had made plenty enemies in his time here.

"I'm sorry," Sephiroth said, and the man and the crowd looked up, their faces warming. Zack smiled a little; one thing about Sephiroth, when he said he was sorry you believed him, because you could tell he didn't say it often. Although this was the third apology tonight; the man was getting plenty of practice.

"For the buildings as well." Sephiroth said, "You have my word you'll be compensated." The group nodded their heads, somehow willing to believe in the honor of the General even if they had no faith in ShinRa.

ccccccccccccccccc

When Abby Strife first opened her door her shock was so great that her face showed no surprise at all. It took a full second before her mouth and eyes widened as she took in the fact that her son was at the doorstep, looking like a drowned rat that had been dragged down a bloody alley. Not only was Sephiroth with him, but another man whose shirt had been torn down the middle with a big sagging gap that revealed clotted blood all over his chest. She looked up at this third man who flashed her a beautiful smile as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Can we come in?" Cloud asked gently.

"Yes," Abby said, looking absent and confused. Cloud stepped in first, putting an arm around his mother to pull her out of the way.

"Were you downtown?" Abby asked. "I heard there was a fire. I didn't go see because the smoke would be bad for my lungs. Friede kept calling me, telling me one unreliable thing after the next until I told her she was a nuisance. I think she's mad at me now."

Sephiroth peeled his coat off, peeling because it had glued itself to him with dried blood and was making him rather uncomfortable. Abby's eyes went wide at the sight of so much blood.

"I lit the town on fire, Mrs. Strife," Sephiroth confessed.

"The whole town?"

"No, just the school and the Town Hall."

"Why?"

Cloud, finally understanding why those two buildings had been chosen, started to laugh.

"And what do you find so funny, young man?" Abby asked sharply. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because I never played rugby," Cloud said.

His mother shook her head, confused.

"Never," he repeated, "I never played."

"But all those bruises, that broken arm..." Suddenly she understood. Her son had been making excuses all those years.

"Most of it happened in back of the school, and once in front of the Town Hall. I told Seph about it on our last visit; I guess he decided to work through the pain of my death on those poor buildings."

Abby stood frozen; this was getting more bizarre all the time.

"I'm not dead," Cloud stated the obvious. "But he thought I was."

"I thought you were too," Zack said, pulling Cloud close and kissing him on the head.

Abby's mind whirled as she tried to grab onto something normal, something she could understand.

"Is this Zack?" she asked finally, pointing at the third Soldier who matched a description she had heard many times on the phone. At least his hair matched.

"Zack Fair," Zack moved in front of Abby, hand outstretched. When she took it he covered her small hand in both of his. "I am so excited to meet you." He smiled that disarming smile and started to fill her in on their situation, glossing over to such a degree that coming from him it sounded like a grand and not very dangerous adventure. Cloud, grateful for the charm and distraction of his friend, melted against Sephiroth and wrapped his arms tenderly about his waist. When Zack was through with her she patted Sephiroth on the arm and left the room, slightly dazed and saying she would get some extra towels out so they might shower, and then heat up something to eat.

"You're amazing," Cloud said to Zack.

"Best bullshitter in Gongaga, which is saying something," Zack admitted, but his proud grin fell at the sound of a knock on the door.

"Since when does the angry mob knock?" Cloud asked.

"I got it," Zack said, still asserting himself as the most fit and lively. With a smaller, indoor appropriate blade deployed out he opened the door with his body off to the side. Nothing charged through for him to slice. He peeked cautiously around at the two blue-suited men standing there. Zack put his weapon away and stood in front of the two Turks, Reno, whom he knew, and another bald guy he had seen but didn't know the name of. Behind them his little guide from town moved from side to side, trying to get a better view inside the house. The man apparently didn't care who he played with, as long as he got to play.

"I'll speak to them," Sephiroth said, seeming not at all surprised to find Turks at the door. He bristled at the sight of Reno but resolved to remain businesslike.

"You Turks must have followed immediately after us. How many are here?"

"There are six, two in town, two at the reactor, and us," the bald one said. A radio crackled as the reactor group reported in. "You should have alerted us to your activities."

"Why bother? Sephiroth said, "You seem to know what I'm doing all the time anyway."

The Turks didn't have a good answer to this.

"What'd you do with the head, yo?" Reno asked.

"Which head?"

Reno frowned, remembering with annoyance the reactor group said there was some sort of headless monster at the reactor. But nobody cared about monster parts.

"Hojo's head," he said slowly, "We had to wrestle the body away from some townspeople who wanted to burn it on a stake or some other barbaric thing. They wouldn't cooperate as to the location of the head."

"I threw it into the forest approximately due east of the kill."

"Shit," Reno said as his partner radioed the information along. They'd probably never find the thing. His eyes scanned around the living room behind Sephiroth where he spotted Cloud.

"He's all right?" Reno asked softly.

Sephiroth considered Reno. He seemed different to him. He was still insolent and arrogant, but his demeanor towards Cloud and himself lacked ill intent.

"He's fine," Sephiroth said. "And thank-you."

Reno smiled a little and turned away to consult with the other Turk. Sephiroth liked the attitude of this bald Turk. He seemed very disciplined. And quiet.

"You, General," Reno finally said, "Have earned yourself a Turk guard tonight."

"I'm not going anywhere. You can arrest me in the morning."

"No, not to keep you in, to protect you against any angry townspeople."

"We don't need protection."

Reno looked again at the General and his two men behind him. "You guys look pretty beat up. You need sleep. Besides we don't want to risk you breaking some fool miner's neck who decides to mess with you. Rude and will take shifts standing watch."

"You can stay outside," Sephiroth said.

"Oh no they won't, where's your manners?" Abby Strife had returned and gave Sephiroth a mighty swat on the shoulder. He backed up, unprepared for this forceful intrusion from her.

"Come in," she said to the two Turks, "I'll not have people hanging about my doorstep all night."

"Thank-you, ma'am, we'll spend the night down here," the polite Turk said, motioning to the living room. Reno sauntered in after him, smirking at the big General cowed by his future mother in law.

"You three," Abby, still in charge, faced the Soldiers. "Upstairs! Shower that grime off please. There's only one guest bed. Zack please take that one. Sephiroth, you'll have to share Cloud's room."

"That'll be fine," Sephiroth managed after a stunned pause.

Abby went to the kitchen to busy herself now that she had five guests instead of three and Sephiroth pulled Cloud back under his arm.

"That'll be more than fine," he whispered in Cloud's ear.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Six months later, early summer, a small glade in the mountains south of Midgar

"Cloud, will you relax, you're making me nervous." Zack Fair upended a plastic champagne glass and Cloud scowled at him. It was about his tenth one and Cloud wondered how the older Soldier could be nervous after that much alcohol.

"I can't help it," Cloud said. "I feel responsible for everyone here. That they have everything they need, that they have a good time."

"But you're not, I'm supposed to be responsible for all that."

"Yeah, but you're drunk."

"Am not," Zack countered as he refilled his glass. "And anyhow, I did everything already, and a fine job I did I must say. Plus the only person we really have to worry about is your mother, and she has the best tent, a real bed, her own solar shower, and five Soldiers every time she turns around to cater to her every whim. And look at her, she's happy, yapping away with Aerith. The rest of these guys..." Zack waved at the crowd. "Pfft. This is the cushiest field operation they've ever had."

Cloud had to admit he was right. With the exception of a few spouses and serious partners that Sephiroth had personally cleared as trustworthy enough to even view Aerith, all the guests were Soldiers. They could take care of themselves.

"And what are you supposed to be doing?" Zack accosted him, "Relaxing, feeling the planet, filling yourself with good vibes and such. Here-"

Zack bodily pulled Cloud along towards Sephiroth, who appeared to be having no problems with his nerves at all. He was talking with several of his First Classes, including Major Niven who was smiling, actually smiling. It completely transformed the man's face. He looked so young, beautiful, even. As Cloud approached Sephiroth wrapped an arm around him.

"Look- relaxed, happy," Zack said, motioning towards Sephiroth with his glass. "You need to suck some of that off of him. Let it floooow into you." Zack punctuated this with a swooping motion with both arms. The entire group stared at him. Apparently deciding they didn't quite understand, he repeated himself.

"Floooooow," Again with the arm swooping.

"Zack, I think you're drunk," Sephiroth said and appropriated Zack's glass for his himself.

"Hmm. Maybe a little," Zack admitted. "But it's not every day my best friends get married."

Just then the light abruptly changed, the way it does in the mountains when the sun just kisses the ridgeline to the west. Sunset comes on fast and is over quickly in the mountains, and they meant to do the ceremony during that time, that special moment. The whole assembly hushed as one then the next noticed the change, and Nanaki, a rare flamewolf from Cosmo Canyon chosen by Aerith to conduct the ceremony, took his place in the center of the glade.

That had been a piece of work to get Nanaki's blessing, with the intended couple having to make multiple trips out to see him before he would agree. Like Aerith, he originally found something objectionable in Sephiroth's energy, and a hint of it even in Cloud although he noticed whatever it was dissipated in Cloud with each visit. Sephiroth, far from being annoyed at being called 'contaminated', was wildly happy about the decrease of said contamination in Cloud. Whatever Hojo had done to him hadn't stuck.

In the end Nanaki agreed because together they seemed whole, whatever poisonous, dangerous thing was inside the odd General was mitigated and calmed by the presence of Cloud, and in the end it seemed better all around. And they were so obviously in love.

Sephiroth and Cloud stepped in front of Nanaki, Sephiroth squeezing Cloud's hand reassuringly. The flamewolf looked old and wise to them even though they understood he was young for his species. He was heavily tied to the planet and its history, one of the reasons they wanted him to lead the ceremony. Aerith herself wouldn't do it, claiming to be too young, since the one who joined the couple should traditionally be older than either of them. Nanaki addressed the crowd, reminded them of the serious bond a forbinde represented, made a joke that if they were flamewolves they'd have to put up with the same mate for five hundred years. The crowd laughed; they were enthralled by his deep rich voice and calm presence. Most of them had never seen a flamewolf before, and eyes kept flickering to the fiery tailtip that moved slowly to and fro, appearing ever brighter as the sky dimmed.

"Cloud Strife, son of Abby and Edward Strife, have you understood everything said here in this place holy to your heart, about the nature of the commitment you are about to enter?"

"Yes," Cloud said, feeling his face hot, heartbeat rapid.

"Do you enter this Forbinde with the one before you?"

"Yes, I do." Cloud swallowed, choking up a little and hoping with all his might that Sephiroth wouldn't perceive him as uncertain because of it. He was just so nervous, and he couldn't explain why. He knew people got nervous at their wedding, he just didn't expect to fall apart himself.

"Sephiroth, parentage unknown but cared for by many, have you understood everything said here in this place holy to your heart, about the nature of the commitment you are about to enter?"

"Yes, and yes, to the other question. I enter this Forbinde with the one before me."

One irreverent Soldier piped up, "A little eager, are we?" The crowd chuckled and Cloud looked up at Sephiroth, realizing he was nervous too. Cloud's eyes filled with water and threatened to send him to tears.

Nanaki smiled, a toothy and terrifying gesture. It was close enough.

"I pronounce this Forbinde sealed," he said and applause filled the glade as the couple kissed, releasing some of their tension. Well wishers came forward and clapped both on their shoulders and champagne was shoved in front of them. They found themselves separated, reunited, squeezing one another hard, then pulled back into the crowd again. Finally Cloud's two young friends managed to get him to themselves.

"A toast," Anthony said, "to the first of us to bite the dust." Cloud laughed and they all three drank.

"I suppose you'll be next?" Anthony said to Thom who remained silent. His eyes had drifted up to Gavin, who was laughing with the General.

"Thom?" Cloud asked, "Are you..."

Thom nodded slowly before speaking. "Yeah, maybe around Winternight."

Cloud and Anthony stood still for a second, then buried their friend with arms and weighty torsos, hooting and hollering and inflicting some pain to his head with rubbing knuckles.

Somebody turned on music from a small portable player. It sounded thin and small and glorious in the glade, and Soldiers danced and drank and flipped each other around through the air, yelling in unbridled joy. Cloud, feeling a little spent from his day, or rather days, of anxious anticipation, took to watching the display after awhile in a quiet spot where his mother, Aerith, and other non-enhanced partners were sitting. His mother was watching open mouthed as if she were at the circus. He heard somebody fall in the stream in a particularly uncoordinated landing.

"Boda!" they heard across the field, and Aerith laughed. Cloud was relieved she was doing OK; Zack had been a handful all evening.

"Hey." A quiet voice whispered right in Cloud's ear. Its owner, smelling of persimmons and pepper had snuck up behind him. "There's one more thing we're supposed to do tonight."

"You don't say?" Cloud reached his arms up around Sephiroth's neck and kissed him.

"I think we're going to turn in," Cloud said to his mother, "Do you have everything you need?"

"Yes, thank-you dear. I'll see you in the morning," Abby said, eyes still glued to the show.

He kissed her on the cheek and let Sephiroth lead them to their tent, not the small tent, nylon, two man, but the big one the General had during final camp. On the floor was the futon mattress, a box with a small battery lamp on top, snacks, another bottle of champagne, lube, and tissues. Cloud smiled. Zack had arranged all of this- everything, the food, the tents, the latrines, the air drops, and the helicopter transportation. He had worked his tail off the last couple of weeks. He deserved to kick his heels up tonight.

They owed him so much, and not just him, so many people had helped them along the way. That's what Soldier was about, helping one another. Even Turks had done them a good turn, writing such a compelling report of the Niebelheim incident that Sephiroth had been forgiven, provided he paid for reconstruction of the school and the town hall in Nibelheim out of his own pocket. They were big buildings for Nibelheim, but small as far as buildings went. They cost only a few million gil each. At the urging of Aerith he spent an extra 500K for a top architect and fancier construction to make sure the things were beautiful, because as Aerith said beauty begets beauty, ugly begets ugly. Cloud had to agree that it at least couldn't hurt. His mother had said the town was so excited about the new buildings that they were going to name one after Sephiroth. How they had all laughed.

Cloud took off his boots and lay on the mattress, still ruminating. Hojo had been replaced by a new, young scientist and ShinRa discovered that Hojo wasn't the end all be all of a science. The new guy was hard working, pleasant, cheaper than Hojo, and full of new ideas. Cloud suspected Sephiroth liked him, even if he did keep his distance.

"What are you thinking about?" Sephiroth set himself down on the mattress next to Cloud.

"Just... everything. How everything worked out, how many people helped us. How lucky I am."

"Hmm. You and I both. But don't get too comfortable, I'm sure something will come up to put our lives on edge. We are Soldier after all. Wouldn't want you to get bored."

"I'm not bored," Cloud protested.

"Are you sure?" Sephiroth put his lips to Cloud's neck and pulled with his fingers to free Cloud's shirt. That accomplished, he ran his hands back and forth over Cloud's skin, Cloud felt the heat rise in his body, his loins respond.

"I'm sure," he answered, pushing Sephiroth's coat free of his shoulders. It was his newest, softest, leather coat that he wore for special occasions where he still wanted to feel defensively dressed. Or comfortable, at least. Sephiroth spent most of his time in a battle coat so he chose to wear a coat to his Forbinde. Sephiroth got very attached to these coats, in fact Cloud had to make him throw away the Frankenstein stitched coat from the materia bomb in Wutai since there was more stitching than leather in that one.

"Slow," Cloud said, "I want to go slow."

"Me too." Sephiroth had gotten Cloud almost undressed and was starting a line of tiny kisses down Cloud's abdomen. Cloud reached for Sephiroth's waistband and unhooked one button. Then he pressed his hand to the swelling below it. He unbuttoned another and did the same, each time feeling the response surge and push against the tight fabric. Sephiroth moaned, his trail of kisses now requiring him to push Cloud's boxers downward, slowly downward as Cloud finally finished his teasing work with Sephiroth's fly. Eventually they were free of all clothing and lay naked, rubbing the entire length of their heated skin against one another, pressing leaking erections together. Cloud reached down to both their organs and squeezed them together tight.

"Oh, Cloud," Sephiroth said breathing hard.

"No more slow," Cloud said, "I want you inside of me. All the way inside of me."

Sephiroth didn't argue, he found the bottle of lube, discovered Zack had forgot one thing as he had to rip the safety seal off the new bottle with his teeth. He flicked the top open and stopped. Cloud had lifted his knees up and Sephiroth couldn't help but run a hand up and down one beautiful thigh. Then he started with that small trail of kisses again, this time down one inner thigh, slowly, occasionally nipping lightly.

"Seph!" Cloud jerked and pushed his hips upward until he was able to press his hardened shaft into Sephiroth's cheek. Sephiroth pushed back, then took Cloud into his mouth. He finally poured some of the lube into his fingers and slid them into the silken cavity, finding the hardened knot inside to pressure and rub with tiny strokes, just the way Cloud liked it. Cloud was panting now, and Sephiroth could tell he was holding himself back. He lifted away and smiled; he hadn't meant to tease Cloud on their Forbinde night, he meant to give him everything he wanted. But sometimes it was too fun not to tease him a little. He withdrew his fingers and pressed his weeping tip against Cloud's opening. A small push let him in to warm, slick ecstasy.

"Oh, Cloud, Gaia you feel so good,"

"I know," Cloud panted, probably meaning 'yes it feels good' not 'yes I know I feel good to you'. Either way Sephiroth couldn't be happier with him, with their sexlife, with his personal life, with his Forbinde choice. He did one final thing that Cloud loved, the tent exploded into a mass of black feathers and he tipped and tilted Cloud so he could slide the wing under them both. Cloud moaned and mewled and sunk fingers deep into the dark, fragrant plumage as Sephiroth thrust and stroked Cloud, the extra support of the wing freeing him of the need to use his hands for support. With an enormous wail of climax that Sephiroth was sure would have Soldiers giving them grief for weeks Cloud came, screaming Sephiroth's name, sending his shot up over his own head and into the black wing. Such a display he made of himself Sephiroth barely noticed his own orgasm emptying out inside of Cloud, holding himself deep as his abdominal muscled twitched the last fluid out.

Both faces relaxed as slowly the world became real again, the night pressed in cool and clean, Soldiers laughed played outside their tent door.

"I love you, Cloud."

"I love you too. I always will." A common phrase drifted into his mind: 'Forbinde means forever'. Cloud smiled.

**A/N: I got to do everything I wanted here that the tragic ending didn't allow. I got to kill Hojo. I got to end on a lemon. I got to do the Forbinde.**


End file.
